Where's a good Stud when you need one?

My latest adventure in wooden things was to take a gift box and turn it into a holder for some of my woodworking DVD's. I hate to throw stuff out and when I got the chance to rescue the box from the garbage I took it. It's been sitting around for a while and I've been looking at it wondering what I could do with it. Yesterday, when I was supposed to be tidying up my study, I noticed the large, precarious pile of DVD's on top of a shelf. No further tidying got done.

My intention was to mount the box to the wall beside my computer desk. I got the handy dandy stud finder from downstairs and proceeded to run it slowly over the wall. It beeped and the lights went on; however each time I made a pass the studs seemed to have moved. I finally gave up figuring it was the metallic wall paper that was causing the problem.

Richard came in and used the stud finder on the other side of the wall and then measured the distance from the door opening. You'd think that would have worked. Nope. I carefully transferred the measurements and drilled an exploratory hole. Wallboard. I went back to the tap, tap, tap method to try to verify the placement and drilled another (small) hole. More wallboard. Now, I know that, theoretically, the studs are on 16" centers. Third time lucky? Not so much.

I decided to attach the box to the side of the computer desk where I didn't have to worry about studs or the lack of them. I'm so glad that when we build our shop we will have plywood rather than sheet rock on the walls. We'll be able to hang anything anywhere we want and that's how I like it. I never did care much for studs anyway.

Snow bathing

I was sitting at breakfast yesterday when some movement caught my eye outside the window. There were a bunch of magpies on the roof of the garage next door flapping around in the snow just as they would be if they were bathing in water. They were tossing snow with their heads, flapping their wings in it and then shaking themselves, wagging their tails and preening. I'd never given any thought to how birds keep clean in the winter but I guess I've just found out one of the ways. They left quite the interesting pattern in the snow too.

One of the other little joys I experienced the other day was being able to sit on my couch with a nice cup of tea and watch the snow come down. I thought of what things would be like at school and how everyone would be anxious to get home before the roads got too bad. It is such a treat to be able to stay home when the weather sucks.

Today I made a couple of batches of cookies to take to choir tomorrow night. It's odd, but I feel like I'm getting a bit of a glimpse into my mother's life now that I have time at home. I've never had time at home before except during holidays. I'm not too keen on New Years' resolutions, but I do think I want to establish something of a rhythm to my days and weeks. Up til now I've don't what I wanted and I think I could benefit from a bit more self-imposed structure.

It's fascinating how people are using the internet to establish income streams. I'm currently following te progress of 4 entrepreneurs who are using blogs, and video podcasts. I've been able to see the businesses grow. There's tremendous potential in this area and I can't even guess where it will go next. It's interesting to watch the growth.

Calgary weather has been crazy. We had a few good dumps of snow and today it went above freezing making driving on the side streets like trying to drive in sand. I got stuck going from the alley onto the street and had to put the four-way flashers on, return to the garage for a shovel and dig myself out before I could go to an appointment. Katharine got stuck after her music lesson last night and Richard just about got stuck. I don't remember so many people being stuck when we used to get a lot more snow than we've had for the past few years. I remember being stuck once in Banff and I had a small rear wheel drive car. Apparently there are no snow tires to be had this season but I'll certainly be looking for a set for the van for next year. Tomorrow it's supposed to be up to +6 which may mean a whole lot of the snow will melt and then the water will freeze over night and things could get really slippery. Ah well, as I said earlier, I don't have to drive to work every day regardless of what the roads are like.

Adapting to Changes

It's amazing how dependent I get on technology I know and how reluctant I am to change. I haven't been blogging lately because I haven't been using my regular laptop a lot and that's where I have my photos stored. To surf the net and read email I use my netbook which boots up much more quickly and doesn't have issues when I leave it on and let it go to sleep. Until now, I haven't put any photos on it. So big learning experience since the operating system is linux rather than Windows. I have a picture of the Christmas tree. I don't think that the quality is all that good but it's a start. I was in a hurry and didn't pay attention to the camera settings. I'll experiment but at least this is a start.

Yee haw. That worked. Okay on to other things.

It was a very different Christmas this year. It's the first Christmas without Richard's mom and the second one without my mum. The biggest change is that I'm not teaching so the rhythm of the year is turning out to be entirely different. Christmas was always such a highlight because it was a time when I knew I could rest, catch up on my sleep and do pretty much what I wanted. Well, I can do those things all the time now so Christmas wasn't as special. I still enjoyed it but it was very different. We didn't have the usual number of parties to go to and that's when I felt a wee bit isolated rather than being part of a group. That didn't really bother me although I did note the difference.

Richard made a very good point when he observed that now my life is more uniform so there isn't nearly as much contrast in the highs and lows. He suspects, and I think he's right, that I'm living much closer to the top of the highs than I did when I was teaching. A good thing that I need to get used to.

We've spent a lot of time reading, watching movies, surfing the web and woodworking in Duncan's shop. The other day I made my first mitered corner box. One of my goals for the new year is to make friends with the table saw. I'm beginning to understand that these machines do make life easier for the woodworker in that they save time and the operations are repeatable. I'll still use the hand tools a great deal and I want to expand my repertoire so that I can make many different kinds of boxes, some of which will be quicker and some of which will take longer. I've always wanted to make a box with mitered keys in the corners and the first attempt turned out quite well, with a lot of help and patient instruction from Duncan.

The boxes that Richard and I sold for Christmas presents were very well received which made both of us feel good. I'm going to have to resist the temptation to immediately give away each box I make. I want a selection so I can put them in the Retired Teachers Art Show in the spring.

Now that Angus is an 'only budgie' he is more interested in becoming a member of the larger flock. He has come out of his cage several times and has stepped up onto our fingers and sat there for several minutes. The last time he was out I was able to carry him back to his cage on my finger and get him to step onto the door of the cage which was propped open. Before he has flown to the top of the cage and I've had to catch him to put him back. He will now give wing stretches in the morning and he vocalizes a bit more than he used to although Manx certainly was the more talkative of the two.

Just because I can, here are some of the other boxes that are currently under construction. The curvy one with the two drawers is of cherry. The smaller one with the different coloured drawer pulls is ash and purple heart and the other two small ones are purple heart. The box with the keyed corners (above)is cherry and the keys are walnut. I haven't decided whether to make a walnut top or a cherry top for this one. I'm still in the process of shaping the three drawer box and goofed on the middle drawer so I need to do a bit of work on it before it will fit properly.