You're right Pa

My mother often quoted my grandfather saying that he didn't know what he'd done but the day seemed to have gone by. I always thought that a little weird. How could you possibly not know what you've done in a day? I'm beginning to find out how quickly the days can pass and how little I can accomplish in them. It must be part of the same law stating that prep periods always go twice as fast as teaching ones. One of the highlights today was lunch with Malynda and Katherine, both of whom are getting ready to go back to teaching next week.

It's time for me to start devoting some time to my boxes again. We've been home from Europe for over two weeks and I haven't even looked at a woodworking tool, hand or power. I really don't have anything that's so pressing I can't be down in the shop. I've been seduced by the lure of surfing the net and playing with various ways to post photos. Maybe posting some box photos will help to inspire me to get back at creating shavings and fire wood.

This is the first box I made on the band saw. The top and bottom are purple heart and the case is ash. Notice the nicely turned knob on the drawer; that's courtesy of Richard.









Once I got the band saw thing going I made a whole bunch of pencil holders for the people at school. This shot was taken with the small Olympus that I got in 2003. I was in a hurry when I took the picture so I didn't do a very good job on the colour. The dark boxes are roasted maple. The process makes the wood more brittle and, although it's a nice colour, I'm not sure I really like working with it. The really light ones in front are from some fir that used to be the top of a bar in the basement of the house. We tore that down pretty fast. I'm interested in reusing wood and plan to make some boxes from the solid walnut headboard and foot board of Mum's bedroom suite. It has water damage so nobody wanted to buy it. The other boxes with the bluish cast (bad photography not the wood) are from poplar.




These are the boxes with the concealed wooden hinges that I learned to make in the course at the beginning of July. It was quite different to use power tools for most of the process but they are fun and they will look better once I get a finish on them. I don't know whether I'll make many more or not. The setup Rob had required 4 routers and a couple of jigs. Of course, I could always hand cut dovetails instead. I'm getting better at them and one of these days I'll even be able to do good ones more or less reliably.


It's kind of nice to see all the boxes lined up like that. Now I definitely need to add to the flock. I have a few people in mind for boxes and a couple of friends want me to make some for Christmas presents.

Because I'll be working in the shop a lot, I'm looking forward to is wearing T-shirts, jeans and sweats most of the time. I'm lucky that I never did have to wear high fashion 'lady clothes' to work. One of the things I did accomplish this week was to go through my clothes and get rid of a whole bunch of school stuff. My tiny closet is still a bit squished so I'll have to have another go at it sometime, but I don't seem to be able to do it all at once. I've kept some of my favourite school blouses; I'll still need to be presentable on occasion. Who knows, maybe I'll get tired of wearing T-shirts and scurbs and I'll want to put on something else. That too will be an adventure.