The spoon is finished. Mostly. I realized on the second day that the quality of the wood wasn’t very good. I would never want to use the spoon on food, so I finished the project without doing a final sanding and oiling. This is the finished project.

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Today, I decided to make a spoon. I have zero experience carving wood, and I don’t really know what tools I should use, but I figured I could wing it. I started by choosing an old log from our pile of fire wood. I think it’s oak. I dug through our tool chest and found some tools that looked like they’d be useful. Once I chose a log that looked like it could be a spoon and found a tool that looked like it could make a spoon, I began chiseling it into what I felt would be a more manageable shape.

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We bought a cow share last night. That means we own part of a cow, and that means we’re entitled to a portion of the milk each week. Raw milk, YUM! I already know one share won’t be enough for us. I’m guessing we’ll end up buying a second, and possibly third share in a couple weeks.

The boys enjoyed the farm experience. I think I might have enjoyed it even more than they did. We bought a dozen eggs while we were there, so it’s “chicken eggs” and “cow milk” for breakfast this morning. (The boys have already learned the difference between “cow milk” and the store bought stuff.) We made a pint of vanilla ice cream last night, and we’ll probably attempt to make a small bit of butter this morning.

A few weeks ago, my professor gave us her lecture on pitchers. I had asked Rob before the lecture if he had any interest in having a pitcher. He told me he didn’t, so I didn’t pay much attention to the lecture. Last week (weeks after the pitcher assignment), he suggested that his mom would probably really like a pitcher. I made my first attempt yesterday, and learned that I don’t really enjoy the pitcher form. Today, I felt that I could do much better than my first attempt, so I built two more pitchers at home. Unfortunately, I neglected to bring my tools home from the studio last night, so these pitchers still need a lot of refining. I feel they were much more successful than my attempt in the studio last night, but I’ll need to look at them again with fresh eyes to see if any more changes are necessary.

To date, I have:
2 deep bowls (both glazed)
2 flat oval bowls (1 glazed, 1 waiting to be glazed)
2 wavy bowls (1 waiting to be glazed, 1 waiting to be re-glazed)
1 spoon jar (waiting to be glazed)
3 baking dishes (2 waiting for bisque, 1 waiting for me to stop procrastinating and make handles)
4 teapots (2 bisqued, 2 waiting to be bisqued)
3 pitchers (in progress)
bunch o’ crappy mugs (in various stages of crappiness)

A last bit of April rain helped the plum tree bloom.

If the trees think it’s safe to bloom, then it’s time for me to put away the header with the snowy sunrise and replace it with something a little more appropriate for Spring.

We spent the last couple weekends on Spring chores. Last week, I installed a new vinyl floor product in the boys’ room. It looks like wood and installs much like laminate (but much easier.) This past Saturday, I installed the same flooring in our bedroom, and we’re very impressed with the results. I’ll finish up the last bedroom in a week or so, I’m guessing.

The bedroom.

The other side of the bedroom. (The dog won’t walk on the new floor. Yet?)

While I installed the floor, Rob cleaned out the garage, and repainted/restained all the patio furniture. I then worked on installing a new door closer on the storm door, but I messed it up (as the sun went down) and need to fix it.

We also reorganized our closet and got rid of a bunch of clothes I’ve been keeping because they’re still newish. Nevermind I had no intention of wearing them again, they were just new enough to take up closet space until recently.

We’re working on trim too. I never installing the shoe moulding after I installed the laminate floor downstairs a few years ago, so SHOE MOULDING is high on my to-do list this week. Rob repainted the handrail, and once I’ve installed the shoe moulding, we get to paint all the trim. (I’d much rather do the installations than the painting, which isn’t really strange considering my preference for working as a 3D artist rather than a 2D artist.)

Sometime this week, I’m going to work on cleaning and reorganizing everything else. Specifically, I want to clean out the linen closets, the bathroom vanities. I’m hoping Rob can tackle the basement alone.

I have a few sewing projects in progress. One is a curtain to replace the boys’ closet door. The sewing is done, I just need to hang it. I think I’m going to make my own bed skirts too, instead of trying to find something premade. There are also a few miscellaneous carpentry and art projects I want to work on, but I’m still working out the details.

Lastly, we have one or two outside projects. The first is painting the patio. We keep talking about building a deck, but with Rob’s situation at work, we decided to instead paint our patio to feel less like concrete. I’m still working out the details on that one too.

The second outside project is planting a berm in our backyard for a bit more privacy from the main road. We have great curb appeal (I think) in the front of the house, but not so much in the back and the sides. And unfortunately, being on a corner lot means we have to consider the curb appeal on three sides of our house.

I’m not sure how much time we’ll have to enjoy all our hard work though, since I figure we’ll have everything finished just in time for Rob to be transferred out of state.

It’s just one, but here it is. Mom, Dad, Sis, and me. Yes, I’m hunching over, not because I’m tall, but because everyone else in my family is short.

We had a great trip to Florida, but we’re all very happy to be back home. Two weeks away from home is about a week too long for me. Even the boys are happy to be home, though not quite as happy to go back to school. My camera and I had an early disagreement about how the pictures should be taken during the trip, and we haven’t spoken since. When I get some pics from people who didn’t divorce their cameras, I’ll get a few of them up here.

Week One
We spent the first week with Rob’s parents in Naples, with frequent trips to Marco Island for wedding stuff. Their Naples condo is beautiful, spacious, and surprisingly comfortable for six people (though I’m sure they’re happy to have the place back to two people now!) The weather was cooperative. Hot, but not so hot that I melted. The wedding was on the beach and, of course, it was beautiful. It was a very small, very intimate ceremony and it was perfect.

This would be a picture of the beach wedding.

Tampa
On Sunday, we were supposed to travel with Rob’s mom to Tampa to visit Rob’s brother for a couple days before we headed to Disney World. An early morning trip to the emergency room for my brother-in-law’s partner changed those plans. While cleaning up the yard for our visit, he fell from a ladder and broke his hip. We were able to spend a little time with them on Monday night and Tuesday morning before we drove to the park, though we were disappointed they wouldn’t be joining us there.

The Boardwalk at Disney World
The hotel room at the park was a $1300 per night suite with two bedrooms, two and a half bathrooms, a living room, a kitchen, and three balconies, paid in full by my brother-in-law and Mr. Broken Hip. I have no pics of the room, so you’ll have to trust me when I say it was amazing. The boys were most impressed with the television in the master bathroom and didn’t argue much when it was time for their shower. I’m torn between the turn down service, the three dozen roses they sent to the room, and the extravagant “complimentary refreshments” they offered in the lounge daily. We could have had all our meals there if we hadn’t been in the parks during the day.

The Parks
Tuesday was EPCOT. It rained in the morning when we first checked into our room, but the rain had cleared up by the time we walked over to the park. We hit all the must-sees before sending the boys to an activity center for dinner while we dined at a very fancy, very expensive French restaurant. That’s probably the closest I’ll get to going to France for a while.

Wednesday was MGM. The Star Tours ride was a big hit with the boys, and Brendan was chosen to participate in a Jedi Training class.

This would be a picture of Brendan in a light sabre duel with Darth Vader.

Thursday was Animal Kingdom. It was a humid day, but since we were walking around in what was supposed to be a jungle/rainforest type thing, I almost didn’t mind it. It made it feel more real. We were pretty tired after two full days at the other parks, so the plan was to hit the highlights and head back to Tampa. The rain came just before we got to our last ride, and we decided to save it for our next trip. The highlight of Animal Kingdom was the ride Dinosaur. You ride in this car in the dark and around every turn some big predator appears out of nowhere. Like this:

Rollercoasters don’t make me scream. Dinosaurs roaring in my face? Yeah, I scream. And naturally, the lovely people at Disney with their lovely sense of humor take pictures of their guests screaming. And because I bought pictures those one or two times Rob screamed like a little girl on the roller coasters so many years ago, he thought it would only be fair to buy a POSTER SIZE print of me screaming my head off. I’ve cropped the image down to just the boys and me, for your amusement.

And, if you’re wondering, that is the top I was wearing when the downpour came later that day. Wearing a white top seemed like a good idea when I got dressed that morning.

Back to Tampa then Naples
Thursday night we headed back to my brother-in-law’s place. Mr. Broken Hip was home from the hospital, but was feeling well enough for us to stay the night. Their house is huge and gorgeous, and they’re both excellent hosts, so we felt like royalty. Friday morning we drove back to Naples and spent the last few days of our vacation relaxing before coming home to the cloudy, rainy, chilly Michigan spring weather. It’s so good to be home.

As nice as our visit in Naples/Tampa/Marco Island/Florida was, I wouldn’t ever want to live there.

A quickie pic of the new pendants I’ve been working on.

I’m working with 20mm pendants now, but I’ll be working with 30mm when I return from my trip. I over-editted this photo and lost some of the realness of the pendant. What you can’t see is that the “collage” is encased in a sterling silver pendant with a clear resin. I’m testing for wearability during the trip. Specifically, whether they’ll withstand being worn in multiples without being damaged. I’m currently wearing two together that don’t really match the outfit I’m wearing, but they still look darn good. Darn good.