Scattered Thoughts . . .

I had a busy day today cutting up lumber to make our butcher block countertops for the outdoor kitchen.  It was like a typical Monday today though. First, I couldn't get the table saw adjusted correctly.  Then, when I finally got the saw adjusted well enough, I had problems with the lumber.  As I ripped the lumber it was binding the saw and then bending into crazy shapes after it was ripped to rough size.  I then needed another two passes in the saw to get them to manageable pieces of lumber.   Then, I whacked my head again...   then again...  at that point, I went inside to retrieve my bump hat.  I think I whacked my head another ten times while wearing the bump hat!  It was one of those days.  (I have a headache again this evening.) I managed to get the countertops assembled, cut to size and they are now set in place on top of the cabinets.  For now, they are simply clamped down to the cabinets.   I still have a lot of sanding to do before I can stain and f

We've been without the use of a dryer for about three weeks now.  It wasn't the end of the world though.  I set up a couple of clotheslines behind the house so we could continue to do laundry when it wasn't raining but I like absolutely nothing related to hanging clothes outside on a line so it has been a long, frustrating three weeks. First, I really hate seeing clothes hanging in someone's yard or over a railing.  That is not the place for clothes.  Next, drying clothes is then dependent upon the weather and we get a lot of rain-days here in Waterbury.  Worse yet, all the clothes turn out flat, stiff, rough and I think some of them have gotten moldy due to the lack of high heat that a good dryer would apply to each load.  When we would bring clothes into the house to be folded, we could just stand them up in a corner because they were stiff as a board.  If they had that freshly pressed look, that would be great but they looked like they spent the afternoon drying in

After a trip to Lowes the other night for more building supplies, I started my day yesterday by moving all the lumber we bought from my car to dry areas I have setup in our yard.  Then I got started on pulling power tools out of the shed and collecting all the other tools I would need for the day.   Once everything was organized and setup, I began cutting and assembling the back of the base cabinets and end panels on the base cabinets for our outdoor kitchen.  This actually went fairly quickly but all the bending and twisting was brutal on my spinal injuries.  This is the view as you are coming up the stone path to our back door... Here you can see how the cabinets form a "U".  I still need to cut and assemble the face frames for the left and the back side of the "U".  The wood you see in the photo is actually the back panel.  Since there is no countertop in place yet (I haven't even begun to cut and assemble the butcher block countertop yet), the insid

I had a few hours each day over the past two days to make some progress on our outdoor kitchen project.  My health was poor for a few days up until yesterday so work on the outdoor kitchen came to a standstill last week.   After recovering from usual health problems (related to mast cell disease) and a couple of days of my TBI seriously bothering me again...  headaches, tingling and not thinking clearly...  I was able to go over my design of these cabinets.  I sketched some ideas...  did the math for dimensions...  sketched a bit more... did the math again...  and then did the math once more before cutting each piece.  I then began making all the cuts necessary to form all the parts yesterday afternoon.  On the positive side, all my math was correct which resulted in all the parts fitting together perfectly. Here are the six legs for the cabinet base frame.  I inserted leveling feet into the bottom of each leg so I can keep this big "L shaped" base cabinet level... B

As I sit here waiting for some severe weather to hit us...  heavy rain, hail, high winds, possible tornadoes...  I figured I would share some photos from yesterday.   Yesterday we brought the grandkids up to Burlington for our annual cruise on Lake Champlain.  As always, Will and Sue joined us for the day.   Lukey and Kenzie spent the previous night at Gee and Papa's house.  Gee and I were awoken by 5:30am to giggles and laughter right outside our bedroom door so our day began a bit earlier than we had intended.    The weather was beautiful...  temperatures in the 80s and mostly clear...  so we couldn't ask for better weather!  Since we were out of bed far earlier than intended and the weather was so nice, we made our way to Burlington a bit earlier than necessary.  This gave us a little time to walk around... Kenzie insisted upon bringing Margaret (her baby doll) with her for this cruise... The kids liked these plants...  the giant plants made them feel a bit