Spring Has Sprung – 2018

With the official start of Spring – as determined by the fact that my wife was reading a book, enjoying the sunshine, and drinking wine in the yard – we had a busy weekend at La Maison Du Talley:

Moved all the power tools in the shop against the wall for temp storage duty
Ordered material for attic finish
Set up new iPhone (old one a brick!)
Checkout at Pratt to be able to independently use their fabrication shop.
Moved everyone else’s crap out of my basement and temporarily into the garage
Said dirty words about all the other people’s crap being stored in our home
Cleaned the basement completely out
Pruned the apple trees in the backyard
Restacked the firewood wood pile
Cleaned and prepped attic for floor installation
Published two YouTube videos
Set up new condenser microphone in home office/studio
Breakfast with my mom and wife
Went to the Moonshiners 36th Annual Jeep Swap Meet
Did not buy a new-to-me 1946 CJ-2A project Jeep
Stayed Married
Did not buy a motorcycle or boat at the swap meet
Stayed married – there is a theme…
DID buy an ARB on-board air compressor and a duel battery mount – and got a sweet deal!
Signed up for three classes at Pratt for this spring: Block printing, wood carving, and letterpress
Padded and protected the wood floor and built-ins in prep for attic finish
Cleaned the hot tub
Edged and mowed the front and back yard
Spread Weed&Feed on the back yard and parking strip
Re-seeded the front yard

President’s Day 2018

President’s Day is here and it is time to prune the fruit trees, roses, and lavender. Or at least that was my plan for yesterday. Instead, I spent WAY TOO MUCH time on Twitter – ranting about sensible gun laws and the current US administration. I also spent a couple of hours cleaning the house, washing dishes, working on 2 videos, walking the puppies, and working in the shop. So the entire day was not wasted on-line.

In the shop, I am building a Screen Printers Workbench for a local artist, Amy M. Douglas. She does some pretty amazing prints and oil/acrylic work. We are trading my time for art, so it is a win/win for both of us. Below are a couple of shots taken during the build and I will have a whole YouTube video about the build in a week or so.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I will spend an afternoon this coming weekend pruning, re-stacking firewood, and cleaning the yard – I see a dump run in my future.

3/4/2018 Update:

The bench is done and delivered.

My Week in Review

This past week has been a week of mish-mash happenings:

90-day Post-surgery hip appointment: Could have gone better.
Fruit tree pruning
I built a lid for the compost boxes
A rat didn’t like my lid and chewed through the side to get at the worms in the compost bin
I said dirty words
Mounted 7 up-cycled cabinets in the garage
Finished painting 80 liner feet of 1/4 round trim.
Sweep and cleaned GROP
Organized some stuff into new shelves and cabinets.
Finished painting the corner shelf doors – 5 total coats of fresh paint
Installed the hinges and hung the doors on wrong cabinets
Said dirty words
Re-hung doors on the correct cabinet.
Scratched paint
More dirty words
Touched up paint
Finished corner cabinet install
Did some Physical Therapy for my Old Man hip
Mowed and edged the yard
Read a book
Made a few Instagram and Twitter posts
Amazon sent me a new tool!
Flew drone one afternoon after J-O-B
Planted the boxwood shrubs
Bought garden starts at Nursery: tomatoes, corn, squash, zucchini, peppers,herbs, lettuce, etc…
50+ hours at my J-O-B, hustlin’ to keep us fed and the lights on
Watched about 2 hours of NetFlix
Gave away a bed in our home office
Had to delver it to new owner
Drank some French wine
Worked on cedar log garden table
Bought couch/guest bed for the office/TV room
Braved the gauntlet at IKEA – three hours to pick up a pre-ordered couch 🙁
IKEA gave me a $50 discount for the trouble
Had to source clear glass Victorian-style pull knobs for the corner cabinet doors
Spoke to both of my children for Father’s Day
Heart Happy
Planted summer garden
There was some coffee drinking and puppy snuggling
Took top off of Jeep for the first time in 1.5 years
Started Raining the second I took it out of the Garage
Made grumpy noises
Had coffee and listened to a bluegrass jam session at favorite coffee shop
Watched a movie
Was prolific on Twitter and Instagram
Murdered some dandelions
Rode around neighborhood on errands in topless Jeep when it stopped raining
Made happy noises
Sent some J-O-B e-mails from home
Started reading American Gods out loud with my awesome wife
Went to bed to start it all over again on Monday morning

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Matt Talley_Corner Cabinet Rebuild_2017

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