Kingfisher Cove

Chipping / Slogging Away

Upstairs at the Des Moines house today, doing a whole LOT of flinging. White bags for trash, black bags for donations. And I filled a bunch. HOW DID WE HAVE SO MUCH CRAP?? And the thing is, much of it really is crap.

I ran across a box of my high school stuff that included a big thick scrapbook (in total disrepair) where I kept all kinds of concert programs and newspaper clippings from when our basketball team went to State (ended up 3rd place, I think). At the time, it was all-encompassing because our renowned pep band played at all of the games and we were damned good. [Jesus Christ Superstar, Get It On, Smoke on the Water] 41 years later? Not so encompassing. Hmm. Stuck between those yellowed and crimpled pages were a number of clarinet and saxophone (tenor and bari) REEDS. Mostly used. Hmm.

I kept very little of what was in that box (my yearbooks are in a different box, and of course I’m hanging onto those). One thing I found (and kept!) was the very first short story I ever wrote. Newly learned cursive on a sheet of notebook paper, front and back, dated 1965—I would have been 9. I remember writing it. We were at Camano Island with my grandparents and while they were playing Cribbage, I wrote my story. It was sort of an “adventure” that took place at the island and my grandfather was missing in his boat. Heh.

I also kept my high school diploma. Hey, I worked hard to earn it!

Anyway, emptied out my (crazy messy) vanity area, a big ol’ nasty closet, and most of the bathroom up there. I haven’t even gotten to the CLOTHES yet.

Meanwhile, John worked at packing up sections of the garage. It’s never been a “garage” — it’s a SHOP. It has every type of tool, saw, lathe, metal mill, and cabinets BRIMMING with every type of nut, bolt, washer, screw, nail, and drill bit that you can possibly imagine and beyond. Get this: his pile of hazardous materials to take to the special disposal center is the size of a CAR. And he’s made a dent, but just a dent. JEESH. It’s utterly overwhelming, but I’ve learned to just not look at the entire elephant. Just the part we’re biting at the time.

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Here at home, John’s slowly continuing to work on the master bathroom shower tile. It requires many many MANY treks between the shop (where he trims the tile on his tile saw) and the bathroom, which are at opposite ends of the house from each other. So…just a couple of days ago after cleaning the floor (and it looked so great for a minute!) it now looks like this:

Yeah.

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I’ve also been puttering in the glass studio. I’ve begun my “testing” that I mentioned previously, but have since discovered that the controller on the beast kiln isn’t working. Crap. 

My helper:

Such a handsome pain in the butt.

Dodged THAT Bullet!

It was all over the news yesterday: a semi truck loaded with salmon rolled on the Alaskan Way Viaduct and horrifically snarled traffic for over nine hours. Yep, that would have been my home commute route. Yep, I would probably STILL be stuck in it.  Any incident on that viaduct creates a chain reaction because it affects everything around it—freeways, city surface streets, bus routes. But to be closed for NINE HOURS?! I hated that drive with the intensity of a hundred thousand white-hot suns. I am so very thankful that I didn’t have to contend with that last night! Gaaawwwd.

(The driver was injured, but he’ll be OK).

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We’ve spent much of this past week getting the glass studio functional! There is now a work table! And glass storage! (John’s been working his a$$ off, as you can see). And I’ve been unpacking/sorting glass and other boxes, getting organized and making room to actually walk around in there:

There are still boxes stacked around, full of (non-glass-related) file cabinet stuff that need sorting and filing back into the filing cabinets. I haven’t been excited about tackling that, because, you know, GLASS!! But I need to get busy with it because it’s still difficult to get to the sink/counter/cabinets and I need to be able to do that.

I’ve actually run the smaller kiln already, but nothing thrilling. I’m running some tests on glass compatibility and also to calibrate the kilns so I can compare the two and how they differ with firing schedules. (Like I said, not exhilarating yet, but it’ll greatly aid me in knowing what to expect when I start working on projects).

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Went to Des Moines again today and did a whole helluva lot of FLINGING. (As well as packing, but mostly flinging). John had already taken the big ol’ donation pile to Value Village last week and we have now begun another pile. There will also be a humungous dump run in the near future. Hauled back a pickup load of packed boxes. Yes, we have made a sizeable dent. But, oh man.

And now the Harstine floors need cleaning. Again. It’s never-ending. Kind of not worth stewing over with all this rain and animals (and husband) tracking the (soggy) earth into the house.

But hey! At least I’m not stuck in a traffic nightmare!

The Donation Pile is Overflowing

I really wish we could have a garage sale, but neither houses are conducive to handling that (Des Moines is on a very busy road and no parking; Harstine is too remote). So we’re donating a TON of stuff, and as I make my way through the packing I’ve been often brutally deciding what to give away.

 

I haven’t even started on the closets yet! There will be much, much more…

And then, the books!

Not all of these will be donated (or taken to Half Price Books for a wee bit of coin), but most of them. We’ll have big bookcases in the guest room and we’ll keep our favorites in there, with a few tucked here and there on the entry hallway shelves. Did you notice that those stacks are three deep? Jeesh. (But I do love books!)

So, the china cabinet is now officially empty and it looks so sad and forlorn (and dusty…) I have no place for it here at Harstine, so I’m probably going to sell it. (*sob*)

We hauled back another truckful. We’ve definitely made a dent, but oh boy, there is so much more to go. One bite at a time.

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After weeks of not seeing any birds even with such early spring-like weather, they are now everywhere! That includes hummingbirds, house finches, junkos, towhees, and what I believe must be female goldfinches (either that or the males aren’t in full “bloom” quite yet). And then there has been this flicker showing up at the feeder over the past week! When we’d watch the habitat from the trailer deck, we were definitely aware of flickers in the woods, but never at the feeders. As a type of woodpecker, I just figured they ate the bugs in the trees and weren’t seed-eaters. But this guy (or gal) is enamored with something in that seed mix!

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Looking so forward to finally getting our master bedroom furniture, but we still have a few weeks to go. There are still a number of things that need to be completed in the house:

• Master bath shower tile
• Master bath glass blocks
• Master bath lighting
• Pantry shelving (in lieu of the temporary metal shelves)
• Master walk-in closet shelving system built and installed
• Glass studio work table and glass storage racks
• John’s shop wiring

And then all of the maintenance…

It’s been busy! And always will be!

He Did It!!!

The beast is IN!

John’s explanation about how he did it was “You just gotta be smarter than the kiln.” (And have a fundamental knowledge of physics and leverage vs. weight…and have some strength, too!) This kiln is quite old and ugly (and weighs a frickin’ ton), but I did try it out once or twice after I first got it to make sure it worked and it does. John added the controller and configured it, but it works quite differently from the controller on the smaller kiln so it will take some getting used to. John also hauled down a couple of base cabinets that will serve as the support for the work table and will also provide glass storage.

That will take some doing yet, so it’ll be a while before I can start “playing” in there. But we’re getting close!

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Oh, UGH, what a wet couple of days! Relentless rain, hard rain. We have a massive (and deep!) puddle in front of the garage. Nearly 4 inches have fallen in the past two days, which is a lot! (Yeah, Washington gets a lot of rain, but mostly it’s days of drizzle, not constant downpours). And now the wind has really picked up. All of these scrambling trees surrounding us is a little unnerving.

Stormy at Harstine Island!

As a side note, I am loving my vape (e-cig)! John has one now, too! Yay us!

Puttering

Finally, a “typical” March day. Rainy and blowy and at times pretty wild. (Still warmish, though). John left early this morning to Des Moines on his own and loaded up my monstrous kiln. He has one of those hoist thingies that makes it doable to, well, hoist big ol’ heavy stuff into the truck. He did have to remove the kiln lid and stow it separately since it was too big to fit otherwise. He’ll be able to get it out of the truck (again with the hoist thingy), but how in the world he’ll get it into the house, I have no idea. I think it’s going to take more than one strong body to accomplish that.

I finished up the other side of the dining room china cabinets! I may change things a little once the plate holders arrive, but I think it looks pretty good.

It’s fun to look over at them. It’s fun to walk down the entry hallway!

Not so fun to clean these floors, though. Yeah, so I did that again yesterday. This house is a dust bunny magnet, and the floor is a doggy nose-print/paw-print magnet. Sigh.

Did corned beef and cabbage in the crockpot today! Pretty yummy! Yeah, a few days before Saint Paddy’s Day, but close enough. It was “pi” day, though. A once-in-a-100-years pi day, too: 3/14/15 (3.1415). Kind of cool, but I did not make a PIE. (I never have!)

Tomorrow we run errands, and I’m hoping we’ll find materials for 1) the worktable top for the glass studio, and 2) the slats in the base cabinets so I can store my glass. (And unpack it!) I ordered some supplies today, too. I am itching to work on some glass projects and to finally be able to use that big ol’ hurky kiln. I’ll be able to do much larger projects with that thing. I’ve had it for a few years now, but haven’t been able to use it because it was way down in the garage and carrying precariously assembled glass designs down all those stairs just wasn’t practical. It’ll be a learning curve, as all kilns are different.

Did I mention that Nate was awarded “Sailor of the Quarter?” I thought it was for 4th quarter of 2014, but his ship’s Facebook post said it was for 1st quarter of 2015. Here was the picture they posted. Nate’s a “sunny boy!”

He was Sailor of the Quarter, the guy across from him was Junior Sailor of the Quarter, and the guy on the right (foreground) was Senior Sailor of the Quarter. The guy on the left is their ship’s Commander. (They were treated at the Cheesecake Factory!)

Loading Up the China Cabinets!

Well, starting to anyway! I packed up some of my china and crystal yesterday while we were at the Des Moines house (we’re heading back up there again tomorrow and I’ll pack up the rest). Today I ran everything through multiple dishwasher cycles (yeah, that was necessary) and now it all sparkles! Determining where to put stuff was a little challenging since I don’t  have it all here yet, but I think I’ve done OK so far. There may be some rearranging down the road.

The glass shelves don’t have grooves in the back to hold up plates/platters, so I’ve ordered some plate holders that I sure *hope* don’t stick out too far since the shelves aren’t very deep. I did stick one plate upright, but it’s secured by the stack of plates in front of it (which seems a little precarious).

I love my Royal Doulton Kingfisher collection (from 1923!) It’s actually an Australian kingfisher (♪♫ “Kookaburra sits on the old gum tree, merry merry king of the bush is he. Laugh, Kookaburra, laugh, Kookaburra, gay your life must be!” ♪♫)

Anyway, tomorrow I’ll bring home the rest of my china and work on the cabinets on the other side. I also love my china! They were my great-aunt’s (who died well into her 90s; she and my great-uncle were married over 75 years!) I believe she bought this china—Noritake— in the late ‘60s or early ‘70s, and for an otherwise very conservative and old-fashioned lady, I was blown away at the rather contemporary design and color of these dishes! (Yes, aqua!) Perfect!

 

I’ve never liked the typical “frou frou” china, or the stark china (with just a plain gold or silver rim or something). In fact, I’ve seen very little china that I actually like! So when she gave these to me, I was ecstatic! And honored. I was closer to my great-aunt and uncle than I was my grandparents (her sister was my grandmother), mostly because they lived nearby when I was growing up and we saw them often. They always came over for birthdays and we’d get together regularly for dinner at each others’ houses. Miss you, Aunt Eva and Uncle Glenn!

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When we were at the Des Moines house yesterday, John just about killed himself hauling down the other shelving unit all the way from the top floor and loading it into the truck (and then hauling it into the Harstine house this morning). Jeeze. In addition to that, more Ikea furniture, including a large lateral file cabinet. That stuff is HEAVY. So, looky here!

I have a lot more work to do in there, including going through a bunch of the files we had in those file cabinets. I’m sure a lot of it can be purged, but ugh.

Besides finishing up packing my china cabinet contents tomorrow (I’m probably NOT going to be able to keep the china cabinet itself, which makes me want to SOB), John is hoping to be able to load up the leather recliner that goes with our (cat-shredded) sofa. I don’t *think* the chair is shredded. I hope.

Attacking the Glass Studio

We have officially moved our sleeping quarters to the guest room until our master bedroom furniture arrives. Since last spring, we’d been “camping” in the glass studio on a makeshift bed using the old (lame) mattress from the camping trailer. (Actually: two twin-sized mattresses sheeted together to make a “queen-sized” bed. Yeah, it was bad…) It’s nice! Have our 32” TV in there, it’s comfy, and the animals LOVE IT. Last night when I crawled into bed, there were TWO DOGS AND TWO CATS strewn all around and I had to juggle furry bodies in order to make room for myself! Heh. (I removed all the guest room bedding and reverted to our old stuff to prevent pet hair from getting all over everything).

So. That freed up a bunch of space in the glass studio. John ran up to Des Moines on Friday and loaded up more shelving from the computer room (a much bigger task than that sounds) and hauled it all down here and reassembled it. (There is still more shelving/cabinets to fetch, which we’ll do tomorrow). While John went “gold hunting” yesterday, I started attacking the stacks and stacks of boxed glass supplies and worked at organizing and populating the shelving. (And making room for the kilns! Not sure when we’ll haul those down—probably not until we plan for a lift truck for the uber-heavy stuff). There will be another shelving unit that matches the one on the right that will fit between these two:

The corner of the room where our bed used to be is now John’s computer station, and then I’ll use some of those surfaces for my glass grinder and saws. Also, you can see more shelving and cabinets! This is all from Ikea and has actually held up really well for many years in our old computer room/office. Perfect for a workshop!

(Side note: John’s computer isn’t working! Won’t boot up. He spent hours last night trying to troubleshoot the damned thing (it works in Safe Mode, but that’s it). He took it into a shop in town today).

You probably can’t tell from this, but I really made a sizeable dent in unpacking boxes of glass supplies. More to do today, but a lot of this is glass sheets and I won’t have storage for that until we have the big work table in the center of the room with slats to hold the glass:

It’ll be something like this:

We also need to clear out the built-in cabinets and drawers of crap that has accumulated. And puzzles…

Nice view out the studio window!

Anyway, I’m getting excited! It’s been a l-o-n-g time since I’ve been able to work on glass projects. I’d packed up everything last summer to make room for Nate’s visit in September (so he could actually sleep in there—his old bedroom).

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John also brought down the table he’d made a while back. God I love this thing! I’m not 100% sure this is where we’ll have it, but it does look nice there. Need something “glassy-artsy” for the top.

Another lovely sunset last night! (The weather has been gorgeous!)

One Bite at a Time

Holy moly, how did that postage-stamp-sized kitchen in the Des Moines house hold so much crap? I made a sizeable dent in there yesterday, packing box after box and filling bag after bag (after bag) with stuff to go to the dump. My intention was to donate a bunch, but so much of it was honestly not worthy. Ancient (and mostly rusty) pots, pans, cookie sheets, stained Corningware, lids with no matching things, much of it dating back to John’s bachelor/previous marriage days. I had never used 99.9% of it and it was mostly all tucked back in the far reaches of deep dark cupboards. But I did pack a lot of keepable stuff, and there is still more to go. We ran out of room in the truck (John also packed up a bunch of stuff in the computer room/office, and loaded up a large bookshelf).

We also ran out of oomph!

I look around that house and cringe. There is SO MUCH MORE TO DO. My china cabinet alone is going to be killer. (Not to mention what to do with a jazillion books and contents of closets and…and…and…

Today I’m unloading those kitchen boxes. (And running a lot of stuff through the dishwasher).

 

Random Rambles

• My intent is to be as brutal as possible—purge! In some cases, that’s an easy thing to do. Other cases (like pictures, sentimental items, and deciding what books to keep) are wrenching. For example, we have some really nice wall art/pictures and just not that many walls here at Harstine to mount them.
• I’m so fortunate to have tons of space in my kitchen to put stuff, but I’m also trying to be organized and “smart” about where everything goes so I don’t have to re-do. I also don’t want cluttered counters.
• John put the bookcase in the guest bedroom and I’m really disappointed that it’s in such horrific shape. It was the one that was in Nate’s bedroom and he spilled *something* on it and now it’s badly stained, not to mention badly scratched and scuffed. Sigh. (May move it into the studio for storing glass supplies instead). Ugh.
• Speaking of which, had I mentioned how badly cat-scratched our leather sofa is from over the years? In large swaths it’s bad enough to say it’s cat-shredded.
• “New” does not remain new for long.
• Speaking of which, John dropped his (relatively new) smart phone in a creek the other day while panning for gold. Yeah, it’s toast.
• In other news, I have switched to “vaping” (in lieu of smoking). I really like it, and love that there is no smoke, no ash, no tar, and no odor. I’m not sure how much healthier it really is, but I suspect it’s still better than cigs. Hoping John joins the bandwagon. (Without dropping it in the creek…)