random thoughts – Day 2,407 (Monday 10/19) – troubles

The moon was being difficult.

Maybe a year ago, after some dental work, I felt a weird little bump in my mouth up under my cheekbone that reminded me of a tapioca pellet. When I wash my face or touch my cheek, it feels weird. Not painful, more like odd. 

I mentioned it at my next dental appointment and the dentist looked for it in the x-rays but nothing showed up. Months later, at a routine cleaning, I mentioned it again and they looked at the new x-rays. Nothing. The dentist thought it might be a sinus thing and suggested I see an ear, nose, and throat specialist.

The ENT appointments for new patients were scheduling about six months out and the earliest I could get one was December. I was added to the list for a cancellation and a couple weeks ago, the call came in for an appointment sooner than December. That appointment was this morning.

Dr. E felt around in my mouth under my cheekbone and found the thing. He said some medical words and then translated for me that it felt bony and doesn’t move around. A CT scan was recommended. Someone will call to schedule. Cool, cool.

That took up part of the morning, and when I got back to the house to spend an hour before leaving for glass class, the siding crew was busy stripping the front of the house. The project is approaching the home stretch.

The plan for glass studio time was cutting scrap glass for a quick new crescent moon piece and then adding hanging loops to the pieces I made in the previous two weeks. The glass cutting was dreadful. I thought it would be quick, but the glass I grabbed was temperamental. Some of it was thicker than usual and really hard to snap off at the score line. Bottom line -- it became a real pain the butt real quick.

Most of the glass I chose from the bins was because I liked the color, but then a lot of the pieces were too small. I modified the pattern on the fly to accommodate the glass I wanted to use. After the final grinding of the pieces, I turned away from the grinding machine and the cardboard the pieces were laid out on hit something and all the glass shifted. One piece landed on the floor and broke and I was back to pawing through glass to find something to use for a replacement piece. 

Supper!

The quick project I thought could be cut and foiled in one session took much longer than imagined. The moon was not cooperating. Because I had changed up the pattern there was no way to match the cut glass to the location in the design so it was secured to the pattern paper with masking tape for transport home.

Glass class may have gone a bit sideways but supper was delicious. Pumpkin and sage ravioli with sauteed onion and mushrooms in a creamy sauce hit the spot. One bowl tasted great, but I still felt hungry and stupidly went for seconds. Two hours later, the overly full feeling had taken effect, along with a helping of regret.  Some fools never learn.

random thoughts – Day 2,406 (Sunday 10/18) – laboring

Pinned and ready for soldering.

The second day of the art studios event was today. Once again, I planned to go, dressed to go, and then got caught up in laboring in stained glass and didn’t go.

Today’s time-sucking, self-assigned task was drawing new designs and then cutting small red diamond shapes and then foiling and burnishing them. It took about five hours to do 29 diamond shapes and some random green scraps in other shapes.

After an early evening break for grocery shopping which marked my first time outside the house since Friday afternoon, another two hours were spent cutting and foiling tiny yellow circles and then burnishing and trimming back the foil to expose more of the glass. The various parts are pinned to the corkboard and will be soldered Monday after class or maybe Tuesday.

The benefits to working with lead over copper foil are more evident each day. Lead pieces work up a lot faster because they don’t require such precise cutting, the edges of each piece of glass don’t need  to be wrapped in foil, and there is a lot less soldering required. 

It’s quicker measuring and cutting a length of lead came, setting the glass into the rails and soldering just the joints of the lead rails. But I am getting better at the foiling, burnishing, and soldering. The glass cutting part is either great or a total pain in the derriere and there is no way to know in advance, but that applies in either method. I have a spool of lead came, so bounce back and forth between methods is an option.

random thoughts – Day 2,405 (Saturday 10/17) – breaking plans

Breakage on the design board.

The temperature was in the 40s and I dressed appropriately for a day out and about town in not too wintry gray pants and my current favorite gray patterned sweater. There were artist open studios in town and nearby in Ashburnham and Fitchburg, and I drank coffee and waited for it to be time to go.

Instead of sitting around idly, I started working on new glass pieces. There were more issues with a piece I’ve been fighting with and it was set aside. I decided to do a scrap work piece, but there weren’t enough scraps large enough and soon I was foraging for larger sheets to work from.

Ready to solder.

Suddenly, it was noon and the art thing was underway. Okay, no big deal, still plenty of time. Then it was 1:00, and I would leave after cutting “just one more piece of glass.”  And suddenly it was 2:00. Then 3:00. And that was the end of the day’s plan. So, I stayed home and kept working with the glass.

The new design was in red, orange, and yellow and today I learned that the yellow glass is the worst glass of all to cut (so far). It would score, then, instead of snapping on the score line, it would break on some wild other route and instead of having a strip to work from, I had a broken sheet of glass.

Partway through a rectangular design drawn earlier in the day, I decided it didn’t need to be confined by a box and changed the design. That meant some of the pieces needed to be larger to extend beyond the initial shape. Others needed to be adjusted to fit. Once it got going, it was fine, except for the part where my lower back was screaming because the dining room table is about 12-inches too low to be a suitable worktable.

The pieces were wrapped in copper foil, reset and anchored with pins, and soldered. At 8:30 I was finally done messing around with it and cleaned up. The craft room still isn’t set up, so I’ve been working out of the dining room and living room. Foiling and soldering tools are carried from the crafts room and set up in the living room, and then put back.

Overall, the house looks like a tornado hit it. The back yard is littered with siding, scaffolding, saw horses, and other construction stuff. Inside, the dining room table is buried under corkboards, containers of glass, a large corkboard with the large piece I’ve been avoiding working on and a smaller one for all the other stuff I’ve been doing. Boxes of glass and bevels are on the floor, creating an obstacle course. The chaos extends to the kitchen counter, which now holds the vase that used to be on the dining room table plus the old toaster oven. It’s feeling claustrophobic.

The hot mess and the angst it is generating may be exactly the kick in the pants needed to get the workroom set up. This will be less simple now that I know a taller and larger work table is needed. 

random thoughts – Day 2,404 (Friday 10/16) – lunch, shopping, char

Tackling the tall trees.

The day began as a blank slate, but it got interesting quickly. Two large tree trimming trucks rolled up the street and camped out in front of Mom’s. They got busy trimming branches that were close to the utility lines. A third truck arrived and leapfrogged up the street to the house on the other side of me. I wondered if the wetness from the rain would be an issue, but it didn't seem to be.

My front tree is too tall for it’s variety but not tall enough to warrant utility trimming. Darn it. Mom joked that it would have been great if the trees had been trimmed before all the leaves fell in her yard.

By 9:00 there was a plan with Mom and Sis for lunch and Dollar Tree. Duguay’s Chicken and Seafood was the chosen local lunch destination. I had the veggie burger with sweet potato fries and it was good. Half the fries came home with me. Sis opted for a chicken tender dinner and Mom went for the BLT.

After lunch at Dollar Tree, I spotted friends at the checkout as I was hitting the first aisle and dashed over to say hello. It was exciting. I rarely see people I know out in the wilds of G-Vegas. Once I got to the shopping, I again employed the generally successfully “only buy what I can carry” strategy and rejected a shopping cart.

My focus was special occasion cards and acrylic storage boxes. I overachieved with the target items plus a book, 12-pack of toilet paper, toothpaste that doesn’t have ingredients to which I am allergic, snack bags, and a few other things including the one thing I didn’t know I needed – an “inspection mirror” with a jointed, movable neck to “view behind furniture, vents, and cabinets.” It looks like a dental mirror. It may go down in my personal shopping history as the coolest $1.50 item ever.

At the register, with items balanced atop the 12-pack of toilet paper and two chrome paper towel holders and two oven mitts dangling from my fingers, I remembered it wasn’t toilet paper I need, but paper towels. My linen closet now looks like I’m stockpiling toilet paper for another COVID-19 shortage. At least I can forget about buying toilet paper for a while.  And I’ll probably be back at Dollar Tree on Saturday for paper towels and liquid hand soap.

A week and a half ago, I ordered a four-slice toaster oven/air fryer, which arrived last weekend in an outer box that said only “toaster oven” and I wondered if it was even the right item. The unopened box sat on the living room floor until today and I was wondering if I might not have been as excited about it as I thought, but then it took two cycles on dark to get my toast toasted and I remembered why I bought it.

Oops, a bit charred.

As of this evening, the new appliance is finally set up on the small counter near the refrigerator. It had a test run with the leftover sweet potato fries, and I made a bad guess on how long it would take to warm them up. In the old toaster oven, it would have been one or two cycles on the dark toast setting. It was definitely less than 15 minutes on the air fryer setting on the new unit, and they came out mostly charred. I ate them anyway. They were still good. 

Maybe this weekend I’ll explore the recipe book that came with the new kitchen wonder. And also try to figure out what to do with the old one.

random thoughts – Day 2,403 (Thursday 10/15) – in the zone

Three sides sided, one more to go.

Despite writing every day AND referencing the day of the week, sometimes the week still slips away from me. Case in point – over the past few weeks, I thought Wednesday was Thursday. The most recent activity schedule has a different flow and Monday and Tuesday are busy enough that I look forward to Wednesday because it is mostly obligation-free. Then, somehow, on the magical obligation-free Wednesday, I mentally accelerate the week and keep thinking it’s Thursday.

Today, was mostly an unlabeled anonymous day of hustle and noise that began with the siding crew arriving in my driveway and me abandoning my coffee and scrambling to trade sleeping clothes for daytime cloths and go move my car out of the way. With that done, the scaffolding was set up, the utility boxes were secured, the existing back yard motion lights were reset and old door light was swapped for the new one. The peak above the carport is done. Three sides are done, and the front and the skirting remain and then it is done.

Completed 10-15-2026.

The recent days with the soundtrack of hammering, drilling, and the work crew’s radio playing decent music loud enough that I could hear it have let me slip into the zone while I cut glass. The cruel trick to today’s glass work was that I wanted to use clear iridescent textured glass in two pieces underway, which was some of my favorite types of glass in the past. And in the dozens of sheets of clear glass I have now, there is only one sheet of the iridescent stuff.

It was 4:00 in the afternoon when I realized that today is Thursday and I haven’t talked with Mom all week. Or done a proper grocery run. Or dealt with the laundry. But I soldered the piece set up yesterday, and cut, foiled, and soldered a new crescent moon piece. It appears I have released a glass working obsessive little maniac. I wonder how long this will last and when things will settle down to a more moderate pace. Also, "Maniac" (from Flashdance) was one of the songs I heard a snippet of today.

Note to self: please resume regular life maintenance activities. Soon. Like, now.

Another note to self: get more clear iridescent textured glass. And a cutting grid to catch all the little glass chips. And tacky paper to hold the cut pieces in place during assembly. And more rolls of copper foil and solder. And the zinc notching tool I just learned about so I can more easily add zinc frames on square/rectangle pieces.

Additional note to self: stop falling into the time-suck of watching so many videos about soldering. And looking at glass and supplies online because life was simpler and slightly less expensive when I didn’t know about all the cool gadgets.

random thoughts – Day 2,402 (Wednesday 10/14) – storm and calm

Morning through the sheers.

The Tuesday overnight weather featured a thunderstorm. There weren’t sudden, loud, thunderclaps, instead, they were prolonged waves that at first I thought was a train. Kiki bolted and hid. The torrential downpour slammed on the roof. I was racing my way through a 400-page, mediocre book and was too comfy in bed to get up and look out the window at the drama. After it passed through, the contrasting quiet was nearly as dramatic as the storm.

This morning, I woke up tired at 8:00, but it was most likely due to reading until 1:00 a.m. Or maybe it was 2:00. And I still didn’t finish the book until today. It’s a good thing I got up when I did, because the siding crew arrived at 8:30, which was a half-hour earlier than usual. The sun was shining, it was warm enough to have windows open, and the trees continue to dazzle with color, even through the navy blue sheer curtains in the dining room.

Today’s siding labor was focused on the short wall under the carport, which has multiple lighting fixtures, a window, a doorway, and all the utility boxes for electric, the new fiber, the old cable, and a box labeled Verizon for a preexisting land line phone I don’t currently have but might want someday. Or not. The hammering and drilling sent Kiki into hiding again and she stayed hidden until the crew left around 2:00.

Foiled and ready for solder.

While the guys worked outside, I calmly worked on cutting glass inside. This project is small-ish (6” x 8”) and is serving as a warm-up while I mull over the colors for the larger piece (12” x 26”). There was some glass cutting and bloodshed because it turns out finger tips are prolific bleeders. Later, I did the foiling. Tomorrow I will do the soldering.

I’m trying to perfect cutting, foiling, and soldering on smaller pieces before tackling the large one with many parts that could break my heart if I mess it up. It’s feeling like a rational plan. 

A trip to Ocean State Job Lot resulted in merino wool blend socks (big selection!), rubber treads for the concrete stairs out front for the winter, nail polish, coffee, two melamine tray/plates, and the inspiration for supper in the form of a jar of korma sauce. If I had taken a shopping cart, I would definitely have bought more stuff, but I was operating on my fiscally conservative mode of buying only what I could carry. Schlepping four rubber stair treads through the store was awkward, but helped with the objective.

I played amateur chef and a pot of rice, mixed veggies, chicken from the freezer, and the korma sauce came together and it was delicious. Two bowls worth of delicious, to be exact. And maybe another small bowl for a snack a little later. The container in the fridge should cover some of the feedings for Thursday and Friday. It’s great not having to always think about what to eat.

random thoughts – Day 2,401 (Tuesday 10/13) – missteps

My yard in the morning 10-13-26.

The sunny weather of Monday was cloudier and gloomier today.  The leaves are still pretty and I love looking out the window at the back of the house and seeing the wooded area beyond the yard. It’s been fun over the past year seeing the seasons change. 

The morning was leisurely and I spent some of it finally making a box of Manischewitz potato pancakes from the pantry. The project took longer than I expected, mostly because I don’t fry foods in vegetable oil very often. 

The batter seemed endless and I stood at the counter eating potato pancakes and applesauce while cooking the rest of it. The pancakes were good, but not as crispy as the glowing description on the box described they would be. I fully accept that it was most likely an operator error/recipe misstep.

Not so crispy potato
pancakes and applesauce.

After the late breakfast/early lunch, I sat down with a roll of silver-backed copper foil, a fid, and a box of small triangles. The tiny triangle foiling project continued with edge wrapping and smoothing. My poor finger tips were feeling abused when I realized the time and that I needed to get myself out the door.

It was dance double-header day with two hours of Denishawn in the afternoon and an hour of belly dance at night in another town, miles away. I failed to properly consider food for the day and headed out with a lone chewy granola bar, a bottle of water, and no food plan for the next 6.5 hours. I ate the granola bar on the drive and arrived at my first class already hungry. Talk about a misstep.

After the first class and barely seven minutes into the drive to the second one, Waze rerouted me without explanation. I have tried to defy the oracle in the past and regretted it, so when the navigation system suddenly wanted me to turn left, I did. I don’t know what mishap Waze was sparing me, but the new route delivered me smack into a traffic jam.

For 20 minutes I sat in a line of traffic, with the only forward movement occurring when a few other vehicles bailed, hooked a left into one of the parking lots on the other side of the street, and headed back the way we had just come. Much of my time spent not moving was spent in front of a Thai restaurant, hungry and closer to home than the destination. It took everything I had to not pull into the restaurant, have a nice Thai dinner, and go home.

Even with the delay, Waze indicated I would still arriving on time (thank goodness for my neurotic big built-in time cushions), so I continued to class. My brain was foggy with hunger and everything felt difficult, even the stuff I know how to do. It was frustrating and much of it (or all of it) was my own fault. There is a definitely a lesson about planning ahead and feeding myself in there and I hope I remember it.

The drive home was dark and wet. With flashing yellow, red, and blue lights all around, a trailer with an oversized load banner on the back and a house on the trailer passed me at one point. The spectacle of trailer, house, and entourage was very festive. 

When I arrived home, ravenous, I headed for the fridge before even taking my coat off, grabbed the bag of deli cheese ends, sat on the couch and devoured a nice thick slab of some tasty unidentified cheese that was definitely not American, Swiss, or provolone. And I started to feel better. Next Tuesday, I will need to have a better food plan. I didn't enjoy the preventable missteps.

random thoughts – Day 2,400 (Monday 10/12) – studio, storage setup

In the studio.

The drive to Worcester was another pretty one. The tree trunks were dark and beautiful from the rain and the leaves were very glamorous, especially the vibrant red ones. A country road with a speed limit of 30 or 40 mph is perfect for admiring the scenery. Unfortunately, the narrow roads with no space to pull over are not conducive to taking photos.

In today’s studio time, I worked on a design I drew ad made with lead came many moons ago. Now, I’m trying it again in copper foil, in two sizes. The morning was spent wrestling glass sheets out of the too small milk crate they have lived in forever, to choose colors to use today. I discovered I have lot of red glass. Much more than  I suspected.

In the studio, four of us worked on own projects and chatted about things like the fun ancestral roots info from genealogy DNA tests, various glass projects, the grinder at the end of the counter that makes a horrible groaning noise when it’s powered off, and holidays like today that are not full-blown holidays and had us all wondering if trash was being picked up or not.

Setting up the new glass storage.

Some of my glass was very agreeable, some, not so much. The pink cut like a dream, the green wasn’t too much trouble, but the purple broke during a simple straight cut.

On the way to the Craft Center, I stopped at the nearby Goodwill and found a wooden crate and a file organizer to hold my glass sheets. This will make it easier to find things. The glass sheets that had been stacking up on the dining room table are now in the crate, but much more is waiting for organizing in the alleged crafts room. Bit by bit, the home crafts room is inching along to usefulness.

random thoughts – Day 2,399 (Sunday 10/11) – furnace and heat

Ready to solder.

After running the furnace for less than a day a week or so ago, I turned it off when the weather got warmer again. Saturday night, I was chilly and turned it on again. Instead of the usual impossible to describe smell associated with a heater running, the house smelled like oil. Very yucky. I turned the heater off again and texted my family member furnace guy.

Today, furnace guy came over to check the thing out, did some things, tuned up the furnace and made the smell go away. He also disappeared the annoying on and off clicking sound feature that I thought was a standard feature of an elder furnace but was actually a loose wire. And the best news was that nothing major was wrong and I may have a year or two (or more) to save up for a new furnace. Jackpot!

While the furnace was being looked at, I was cutting glass pieces for new small projects while I contemplate the colors for the larger project. The flux delivered, along with another order of small precut pieces. Some of the new small bordering on tiny triangles were wrapped in foil and burnished. They are so small they needed narrower foil and luckily I had some.

A small side table was recommissioned and set up with the soldering iron, spool of solder, flux, and other needed tools. The two small heart pieces that were foiled last week in the studio were soldered. My foil application, burnishing, and soldering skills are all improving, but still need work. Cutting is still tricky because each type of glass (and color) has its own personality under the cutter and it seems like a large measure of luck is involved. 

random thoughts – Day 2,398 (Saturday 10/10) – oopsie

Sorting it out.

A few days ago, I ordered some one-inch precut iridescent glass pieces in diamond, triangle, square, and hexagon shapes. They were one of the discounted items in the behemoth online retailer’s special sale days and were scheduled to deliver today. I was excited to see them in my mailbox, because I have ideas for usage on the drawing table, but as soon as I slid the padded packet out, I knew something was wrong. The package was way too noisy and sounded like a big oopsie. I did not love the sound of broken glass I was sure I was hearing.

Back in the house, I sliced my way into the parcel because the “Tear along perforation” instruction on the padded waterproof envelopes has never worked. The item was wrapped securely in a plastic bag and when the plastic box emerged, fears were confirmed when a lot of iridescent glass slivers and glitter-like glass powder remained in the bag. Larger bits of glass protruded from the molded plastic box which was missing a piece of itself at one end. Clearly some of the pieces had broken.

Damned damages.

To assess the extent of the damage, I slipped into inventory mode and went through the box, sorting the shapes. There were supposed to be 100 pieces, but there was more than that with the additional broken bits. Shapes were sorted and lined up on cardboard. The hexagons, which were the largest shape with the fewest in the collection, suffered the greatest loss as a percentage. Two of the ten hexagons were broken and one was badly chipped. Several of the 30 diamonds were broken. The squares and triangles (30 of each) also had a couple badly chipped and broken pieces.

Instead of diving into the project with the new glass bits, customer service was contacted. Options for a refund or replacement were presented. I really want the pieces for a project, especially the hexagons, so replacement was chosen. Instructions for where to deliver the product for return were provided and I taped the hole in the box to spare whoever has to open it next, taped closed the bag the box was in just in case the box has another failure, and set it all in the padded mailer.

At the return center, the clerk was about to remove the outer packaging but I cautioned against it due to the broken glass bits. We laughed over sending back broken glass and commented on how it is probably needed to damage it out. The return is now done and by Tuesday I should have the hopefully not broken replacement order. There will be plenty of other things to do in the meantime.

random thoughts – Day 2,397 (Friday 10/9) – doctors, contractors, and artsyness

Provisions.

It was an action-packed Friday. It kicked off with a drive to Dracut for my annual checkup with my doctor of 10 years who I like, so I haven’t been motivated to start all over with another provider closer to home. There was bloodwork, which was great because I didn’t feel like I fasted and sacrificed coffee for nothing.

Before leaving the Lowell area, I stopped at Market Basket to stock up on Greek spanikopita spinach pinwheels and stuffed grape leaves that don't seem to be available closer to home. The bakery discount rack was disappointing, but the deli discount area delivered with American cheese ends. 

Being close to noontime, and being hungry from the lack of breakfast, I grabbed a steak sandwich with cheese from the grab and go hot foods, which was devoured in the car before leaving the parking lot. I'm not too proud for a car picnic.

Progress!

When I arrived back at home, the contractors were busy at work on the siding and I parked on my lawn. During the afternoon, once again, several people stopped by to chat with the contractor and my address felt popular. Nobody ever stops by for me. 

The house across the street is very popular, but usually with ambulances, including today. The FedEx driver arrived across the street while the ambulance was in the driveway and I wondered if there was a protocol for such an occurrence. The delivery was made. Eventually, the ambulance left.

I don’t know when the contractor and his guy started working, but they were cranking until 5:00 and despite the interruptions, finished the back of the house and one of the short sides. The color looks great, and the feedback from the passersby confirms my choice. The contractor was a little skeptical about the color and when he relayed the praise, I looked at him and said “I told you!”. 

Mosaic house number.

The evening was spent in Ashburnham at The Painted Goat art space making a mosaic house number panel. Six of us pawed through scrap glass and arranged bits in a tray with our house numerals. Classic rock blared and the very loud talking instructor delivered instructions in the equivalent of stadium voice. One of the people at my table was singing along with every song, the glue wouldn't come out of the dispenser, and my nerves were fraying.

Despite the noise and the problems with the glue, choosing glass pieces was relaxing until I started to overthink everything, but I finally got to the point of being somewhat satisfied with the bits arranged around my house number. Several people complimented my color choices, especially the yellow, and I basked in the validation because I am sometimes needy like that.

Spreading the grout was a bit tricky. Tomorrow I’ll need to do a bit more cleanup when the grout is set further. I’m afraid the numbers are too small to be seen from the street so I’ll probably need larger numbers on the house for the benefit of delivery drivers and the hopefully never needed emergency services.

random thoughts – Day 2,396 (Thursday 10/8) – siding and glass challenges

Siding install now underway.

The sun burst through the clouds and the contractor arrived to start attaching the siding to the back of the house. There was a lot of noise from sawing and hammering and within a few hours, he singlehandedly had almost half of the back sided. 

Inside, belly dance music competed with the hammering as I unwrapped sheets of glass to see what might work with the glass pattern drawn this week. It was a clear illustration of the changes in the glass industry. 

My supply of old 12” by 12” sheets have prices tags on them ranging from $3.99 to $6.99. New sheets measure 10.5” by 10.5” (or smaller) and cost from $12 to $25 (or more) per sheet. 

Shattered.

A remnant of an old sheet of clear iridescent glass was chosen to be cut into half-inch strips for one of the three lines making up the border of the piece. Eleven strips were scored and made the satisfying snap with the running pliers as the pieces separated. And then it got dicey. No matter what I tried, the next couple strips wouldn’t break off and then the section of the glass shattered in the running pliers. The pieces were definitely not half-inch wide strips. Oops.

Unless I have some old larger glass that will work for the outer border with 12” sections, the size of the new sheets of glass is going to be a problem. The smaller sheets will force a design change to accommodate the smaller lengths. This will be an argument in favor of working on smaller projects going forward.

I was all set to solder the project I wrapped in copper foil on Monday, and that’s when it was discovered I don’t have any flux. There was instant regret over not buying the bottle that was in my hand in the glass shop on Tuesday. At the time, I thought I had a bottle of the stuff, but I discovered today it is flux cleaner, not flux. Big difference. Instead of soldering, I cut more glass pieces from the scrap bins for another small project.

random thoughts – Day 2,395 (Wednesday 10/7) – progress

Delivery!

Every Wednesday, it’s the same thought – “holy crap, it’s Wednesday already!” Today was no different in that regard.    

As I was finishing dressing, fresh and clean from the shower, a loud truck noise outside caught my attention. It was different than the Monday trash truck sounds and the daily oil delivery and parcel delivery trucks that pass through the neighborhood.

It was the long-awaited lumber company flatbed truck, loaded with the materials for my siding job. Unlike the partial order of incorrect color siding delivered in May, this delivery is boxes and boxes of materials, all labeled with the correct color and some unboxed pieces that are definitely the right color. The contractor is due here Thursday morning. Progress, at last.

The morning was spent enjoying the warmth pushed from the furnace that I caved and turned on last night when I saw the temperature was expected to drop to the mid- to low- thirties. It was nice to wake up not freezing. Then time was invested in reprogramming the thermostat a few degrees lower.

After that, it was back to the drawing board. I was plotting and planning a stained glass piece like it’s my job, and maybe in a way, it is my job now. Much of the design sketched on Monday was redrawn and expanded on Tuesday, and was changed even more today. Some straight lines were changed to curves. Lines were extended into the edging element to break up some of the straight runs. Then there was a leap to commitment with black Sharpie lines drawn over the pencil lines. It will be much harder to backtrack now. I may color it with pencils, which I've done on larger pieces in the past.

Next up is glass selection. The funny part is, the design started out specifically for a piece of pink, white, blue opal glass bought on Tuesday along with three sheets of coordinating clear colored glass. Once the drawing was underway, the piece expanded in size and the design grew from one central element to three and now the single sheet of opal glass won’t be enough. I can either go to the glass shop Thursday and get another sheet or two of the same glass, or totally change the glass scheme. We’ll see how it shakes out. 

While drawing the current design, I got an idea for another design and it might become a situation of endless designing and not getting around to executing. So many mysteries still to unfold, but it feels like progress.

random thoughts – Day 2,394 (Tuesday 10/6) – grandpa ray's birthday

Markie and Grandpa Ray.

On October 6, 1916, in Vaasa Finland, Grandpa Ray was born. As children, he and his sister Sylvia are listed with their parents in passenger lists for multiple crossings to and from America. The family settled in Fitchburg, Massachusetts.

Somewhere along the way he met and married Mummu, who had been born one day before him, half a world away. Grandpa Ray had a big reputation. According to local lore, he once physically picked up and relocated a friend’s car as a prank. In his younger years, he worked as many as three jobs at a time, including working in an apple orchard and driving a taxi. Eventually he established his own business specializing in “rebuilding, aligning, and scraping” machinery, based in Lunenburg, Massachusetts.

Mummu and Grandpa Ray divorced when Mom was six, in a time when it was unusual. When I was a kid and he visited, he would bring donuts, and allegedly, it was me who christened him "Ba Ba Gooie" because the donuts were gooey. Or something.

Yankee kids in Texas.

Eventually, he packed up and moved his business to Fort Worth, Texas, where people called him “Yank,” and he met and married Markie, a redheaded Southern Belle from Oklahoma and for better or worse and to her surprise, she became "Ma Ma Gooie." My family drove to Texas on family vacation when I was eight years old and we all got cowboy boots. Luckily, later visits involved air travel. My brother spent the summers of his junior high and high school years with Grandpa Ray and worked with him in his business (and was forbidden from addressing him as Ba Ba Gooie and had to call him Ray).

When Grandpa Ray bought a new car, he would sometimes drive to Massachusetts to visit us and “break the car in.” Grandpa Ray had some amusing theories. When driving on a curved entrance/exit ramp, he drove in as straight a line as possible because he said turns wore out the tires. The legendary “Ray shortcuts” (which we still joke about) usually resulted in many extra miles and being an hour late despite having left early.

There was always a lot of food at Grandpa Ray’s house. Markie was an amazing cook and full dinners with recipes from Southern Living Magazine graced the table nightly. Sweet potato casserole, roasts, side dishes, Jello salads, breakfast casseroles, and decadent desserts ensured we each gained a solid ten pounds during each visit.

At least once per visit, Grandpa Ray would pull out his vinyl recording of Finlandia by Sibelius, herd us into the living room, and make us listen to the entire album. There would be a visit to Angelo’s BBQ for brisket, Joe T Garcia’s or Casa Bonita for Mexican food, and Spaghetti Warehouse down at the Fort Worth Stockyards.

At the last house he owned, he converted the garage to a pool room with floor to ceiling bookcases filled with books. Pool was played by “Ray Rules” which meant you could forget about winning, because he would move the balls and lift the corner of the table at whim. That house had a pecan tree in the back yard, and one year he sent each of bags stuffed with shelled pecans.

A birthday card from Grandpa Ray.

Grandpa Ray was a talented artist, and every year on our birthdays, there was a birthday card and letter with a beautifully illustrated envelope. He did this for all the relatives – his siblings and their spouses, their kids and grandkids, Mom and us kids. Recipients often relayed feedback received from letter carriers who enjoyed the artwork. A cousin has an archive of many of the envelopes, and I have dozens of the ones sent to me in a box in the spare room. 

I wish I’d known Grandpa Ray better. We exchanged letters throughout my life, but they were about daily life. On his end it was about his roses, opening/closing the pool, harvesting pecans, or big projects he was working on for major companies. On my end it was school grades, ballet, weather, my job. I wish I could sit and talk with him once more to know him better, but he passed away in 2008.

random thoughts – Day 2,393 (Monday 10/5) – mummu's birthday

Mummu, FHS 1934.

On October 5, 1916 my Mummu was born, the youngest of ten children. Her mother was 45 years old and her eldest living sister was 20 years old, married, and had a child of her own when Mummu was born. Three of Mummu’s siblings (John W, Lilja, and John) died in infancy or early childhood. Mummu loved introducing “my nephew John, and he is 13 months older than me.”

She was the only one of the kids in her family to graduate high school (Fitchburg High School, 1934), but that was likely because with the Great Depression underway, there were no jobs for her to leave school for after the eighth grade like her brothers and sisters before her did.

There are stories Mummu told us from her life growing up. All the females slept on one bed and all the males in another. Her brothers shared one pair of shoes to alternate attending school. Her sister Julia, ten years older, once stepped into the pantry and landed feet first in some pies that were cooling on the floor. As a teen, Mummu wrote a winning essay about citizenship and received a gold medal (which I now have, and wonder if,  at the time, groceries might have been more helpful). She said she was a ballroom dancer before she married Grandpa Ray. When they divorced (an uncommon thing to do in the 1940s) she went to work in the yarn factory.

Mummu never drove and got up at 5:00 am Monday through Friday and walked to work for a 6:00 am start. She cleaned one room each weekday after work during the commercial breaks of the soaps. Laundry was done on weekends using the washer in the big, dark, slightly scary basement and hung to dry on the clothes lines on her porch. Ironing was performed on Mondays after work in front of the soaps playing on the giant TV with the loud remote clicker.

Mummu's Arabia of Finland cups and saucers.

Many Saturdays, when we weren’t watching candlepin bowling or horse racing or golf on TV, we walked downtown to shop. On Sundays, her white nursing shoes worn for work were polished (often by me) and the laces washed by hand. She always wore a skirt, blouse, and white ankle socks with the nursing shoes, and I still have the gray and white striped cotton work skirt with a metal zipper she wore for years. 

One summer when I was probably eight or nine, Mummu took me to the factory to see where she worked. It was a vacation week and the shop was closed for machine maintenance. There were wood floors, big machines, and dust motes dancing in the light coming through the windows. She was a union rep, and once took me to a union meeting at the British American Club. With no idea what the room of adults was discussing I was bored out of my mind. That union meeting stands out as the only time I did something with Mummu where I wished I was doing something else.  

Mummu loved knitting, General Hospital, and watching football, basketball, baseball, horse racing, and golf on TV. Her favorite golfer was Lee Trevino. She usually had one sport on the TV and another on the radio and kept up with both games while knitting and holding a conversation. When I worked at a bank downtown after graduating college and Mummu lived downtown in the elderly high rise, we would sometimes have lunch together at her apartment.

Mummu and me, 2001.

Mummu died in 2005 at the age of 88. She is buried in the only piece of land she ever owned – a plot at Forest Hill Cemetery in Fitchburg. I was living in Tennessee at the time, and flew home in time to see her before she passed away. I miss her. I think about her when I make her recipes for carrot cake, poultry stuffing, and meringue cookies and avoid making the complicated recipe for the raspberry truffle layered brownies that I loved. I think about her when I look at the black raw silk dress she bought in 1960 for her brother’s funeral that she later gave me and was one of the first vintage dresses in my collection. It went from a bit too big to fitting well and now no longer fits me. I think about her when I see any of the many sweaters she knit for me, and when I see her green and white coffee cups and saucers from Finland in my buffet. All the time, basically.

Happy birthday Mummu. Miss you.

random thoughts – Day 2,392 (Sunday 10/4) – pieces and parts

Pieces.

Part of Saturday night was spent obsessing over art deco stained glass designs. The whole thing kicked off because of the interesting art deco wood design in the elevator of the office scenes in a drama I’ve been watching. The diagonals and different colors of wood are fascinating, and I paused the show frequently to look at the overall effect to analyze how to design something similar in glass. The next step of the process was looking online for existing windows, transoms, and decorative panels for inspiration. The hard part will be reigning in all the ideas.

After a Sunday morning that included yoga stretching and working on some belly dance moves, there was a stop for groceries and the victorious find of B&M brown bread in a can, which often accompanied our usual Saturday night hot dogs and beans supper when I was a kid. It is not always easy to find. 

The rest of the day was lost somewhere in preparing a late lunch, playing Words with Friends, spacing out on the couch, talking to Kiki, running to various windows to take pictures of the turkeys in the yard, making supper, and washing pots and pans.

The magical dichroic rectangle bevel.

Then it got more fun again. The scrap glass containers were reviewed again, this time with consideration for the new larger panel in the early drawing process. Triangles, rectangles, and square scraps were pulled out. One of the fun parts of scrap panels is placing the available glass in the template and then drawing the pattern lines around them, instead of drawing the pattern and then searching for glass to fit.

There was also an Internet search for a specific one-inch by four-inch rectangle bevel with a dichroic center. I have one left from a long ago project and I want more to balance it. This is a tricky search. Some were found in larger sizes but not the size needed so the search will continue. It’s all part of the fun.

random thoughts – Day 2,391 (Saturday 10/3) – at the farm

Beautiful day at Hollis Hills Farm.

The day was another gift of a warm temperature, sunshine, and a blue sky, which was perfect for the day’s plans. The first stop was in Ashburnham to visit with friends who had a table at the art center for the citywide yard sale. 

After a while, I headed to Fitchburg on a gorgeous ride along winding country roads flanked by the changing foliage. The destination was a meetup with my sister at Hollis Hills Farm to sit outside, enjoy the weather, and hear the musician who is an acquaintance of hers.

When I arrived, several parking areas were full or nearly full. The picnic area still had plenty of tables available, but over the couple hours we were there, it filled up and lines grew for food and drinks outside and ice cream inside the barn. Mostly country music wafted in the air and I, not a country fan, knew a couple of the songs the singer performed, especially when it was old school Johnny Cash. I knew more songs when it was the recorded music on the singer's break (White Stripes!).

Pumpkins outside the barn shop.

Families chatted, babies occasionally cried, and kids chased chickens. The singer offered up $5 to any kid who caught a chicken and the younglings got busy trying. Meanwhile, I was trying to offer the chickens refuge under our table and cheering on the ones who found safety under a food truck. One highly motivated boy pulled it off, caught a chicken, collected his pay, and then declared to his family he should get a job as a chicken catcher.

Hollis Hills has flowers and fruit for picking if you like to do the farm labor yourself and displayed in bins if you prefer to be a consumer. There is honey, locally raised meat, ice cream, and more in the large barn shop. Outside has plentiful outdoor seating, the chickens running freely, penned goats for hand feeding, and a big green tractor popular for climbing up and sitting on. The musician was set up on a trailer with a beautiful backdrop of rolling hills and local mountains.

Apple cider slushie - yum!

The Farm's kitchen menu is impressively full and varied, with hummus, burgers, wraps, mac and cheese, poutines, pulled pork, chicken, and more. We had both already eaten so we stuck with cold beverages. 

Apple cider slushies beat out water as our beverages of choice. Thick and frosty with a rich apple flavor, it is possibly my new favorite chilled drink. I may need to return to Hollis Hills soon for another one. And maybe some cider donuts as long as I'm out there.

random thoughts – Day 2,390 (Friday 10/2) – like christmas

Hedge looks like Christmas.

Sometimes, an ordinary day can feel like Christmas. The temperature was around 80, which felt like a gift, and I finally got around to taking the kitchen runner outside to hose it off and wash it. This specific project had been on the list since spring and just hadn’t happened, and every time I looked at the runner I was annoyed with myself. Now, if I can get a dresser sanded and painted, and then paint the shed, I’ll be right on schedule. Sort of.

While putzing around in the yard I noticed the smaller of the hedges, which also had the least trimming done this summer, has red berries and looks a bit like Christmas. I didn't notice berries last year. I used a plant ID app to identify the hedge and it is some type of yew. The two larger hedges don’t have berries, but they also got a lot more pruning over the summer which could be a factor. Or. they are different types of bush with similar needles.

Getting started on a panel.

When I bought the house a year ago, I had a plan to make a stained glass piece for the opening between the kitchen and living room. There was a colorful panel hanging in the space when I first looked at the house, and it looked great. Today, I revisited the book of patterns I drafted ages ago, which include pieces I forgot I made because, except for two small pieces and a couple gift pieces, I sold everything I made. Worse, I neglected to get photos of the larger pieces, or if I did, they are not in the binder and are lost somewhere.

The trip through the patterns was great inspiration to finally get started on the piece for the house. The tape measure, pencil, ruler, and graph paper came out, along with the boxes of bevels which will be placed and then designed around. Six pieces of graph paper were taped together to make a sheet large enough for a 26-inch by 14-inch panel. Pencil lines began. The boxes of bevels were fetched and some were rough placed to get things going.

English muffle glass!

Beneath the smaller boxes of bevels that were in a bigger box lay the surprise of another box labeled “English Muffle Glass.” In the several recent visits with the bevels, I didn’t realize there was another box below them. The box held sheets of gorgeous, deep colored glass and twice as many sheets of various textures of clear glass. The good day had gotten even better. 

Now I need to get busy drawing the colored elements in the panel design, and decide if it will be done with lead came or copper foil. Let the fun begin!

random thoughts – Day 2,389 (Thursday 10/1) – falling gently

The ferns are changing.

The day was warmer than recent days with a springlike high of 71 degrees and I was on board with it. During an early afternoon walk to fetch the mail, drop off a book at The Little Library, and admire the neighborhood leaves, there was a quick chat about books with a neighbor while at the mailboxes and then we were each on our way.

Day by day, the foliage is turning colors and it’s pretty. The trees are taking on shades of red, orange, and gold. It’s still a gentle transition, but soon, it may look like a riot of color. Even the ferns are getting in on the wardrobe change from summer green to fall yellow. I don’t remember noticing this last year, but it’s possible they were mowed down before the color change.

Along with foliage season, dance season is in full swing with new choreography in the works with the dance bestie/duet partner. The music was chosen quite a while ago, the research was underway, and ideas were percolating. She arrived at my house with an outline for the dance and we got busy reviewing traditional steps found in our initial research. It was fun. It is always fun.