Sunday morning
Oct. 16th, 2005 09:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ksmithThe furnace is running. The outdoor thermometer sensor is indicating 41F (5C)
Leaves are changing in earnest now. Colors aren't particularly vivid--although the sugar maples are showing the occasional vermillion breakthrough--lots of old gold and brownish orange against a backdrop of the muted, mossy green of leaves just beginning to change. Still pretty. Drove through the local version of horse country yesterday on the way to a hardware big box store, winding two-lane highway lined with woods and rolling pasture. It was nice. I wouldn't mind a drive like that every day.
Bought a pumpkin, which is currently residing on the front step. Sprayed the surface thoroughly with Bitter Apple to keep the squirrels away. They're bold as brass this time of year--one started eyeing the big orange acorn as soon as I put it down. "You have real acorns up to your eye sockets," I told it. "Keep your teeth out of my pumpkin."
We'll see how long that lasts.
Yesterday, I replaced the back of a hutch, switching out a piece of warped cardboard for a piece of oak finish paneling. Amazing how you can pay hundreds for a cabinet, and still find yourself stuck with a sheet of cardboard for backing. Oh well, maybe thin paneling isn't much better, quality-wise, but it certainly does look better.
Also found some rolls of wallpaper trim on sale, which means the dining room will get a pre-holiday spruce-up. The walls are painted half-and-half: lower half medium sage green, upper half light cream, banded in the middle by a strip of wallpaper trim. The current trim has been in place for a few years--ivy vines winding through a trellis, all in shades of green, gold, and white. Well, this new wallpaper consists of *grape* leaves winding through a trellis, with some blue and purple coloring mixed in with the green and gold. A bit of a color boost.
On the book beat, more uneconomical writing committed. This is a meeting chapter, which in Jani-land doesn't necessarily mean dull. It was starting to drag, though--I was having trouble highlighting all the players and dealing with flagging tension during a time when tensions would most assuredly not be flagging. Finally figured out a nice fix by making Niall pay for his earlier disregard of a character. Said character does indeed deserve disregarding--if the other players had their way, he wouldn't be around at all--but this character doesn't ignore easily and takes exception to being disregarded.
It's Lucien, btw. Gets a little of his own back.
In closing...
Other folks' humor
Thought I'd end with this link, which I found while hunting the 'net for pictures of pumpkins. The souped-up lawn tractor is amusing. The dog cartoon and the note to Santa from the cat. But Pumpkin Butt and Sick Pumpkin--they could make a person's morning.
Leaves are changing in earnest now. Colors aren't particularly vivid--although the sugar maples are showing the occasional vermillion breakthrough--lots of old gold and brownish orange against a backdrop of the muted, mossy green of leaves just beginning to change. Still pretty. Drove through the local version of horse country yesterday on the way to a hardware big box store, winding two-lane highway lined with woods and rolling pasture. It was nice. I wouldn't mind a drive like that every day.
Bought a pumpkin, which is currently residing on the front step. Sprayed the surface thoroughly with Bitter Apple to keep the squirrels away. They're bold as brass this time of year--one started eyeing the big orange acorn as soon as I put it down. "You have real acorns up to your eye sockets," I told it. "Keep your teeth out of my pumpkin."
We'll see how long that lasts.
Yesterday, I replaced the back of a hutch, switching out a piece of warped cardboard for a piece of oak finish paneling. Amazing how you can pay hundreds for a cabinet, and still find yourself stuck with a sheet of cardboard for backing. Oh well, maybe thin paneling isn't much better, quality-wise, but it certainly does look better.
Also found some rolls of wallpaper trim on sale, which means the dining room will get a pre-holiday spruce-up. The walls are painted half-and-half: lower half medium sage green, upper half light cream, banded in the middle by a strip of wallpaper trim. The current trim has been in place for a few years--ivy vines winding through a trellis, all in shades of green, gold, and white. Well, this new wallpaper consists of *grape* leaves winding through a trellis, with some blue and purple coloring mixed in with the green and gold. A bit of a color boost.
On the book beat, more uneconomical writing committed. This is a meeting chapter, which in Jani-land doesn't necessarily mean dull. It was starting to drag, though--I was having trouble highlighting all the players and dealing with flagging tension during a time when tensions would most assuredly not be flagging. Finally figured out a nice fix by making Niall pay for his earlier disregard of a character. Said character does indeed deserve disregarding--if the other players had their way, he wouldn't be around at all--but this character doesn't ignore easily and takes exception to being disregarded.
It's Lucien, btw. Gets a little of his own back.
In closing...
Other folks' humor
Thought I'd end with this link, which I found while hunting the 'net for pictures of pumpkins. The souped-up lawn tractor is amusing. The dog cartoon and the note to Santa from the cat. But Pumpkin Butt and Sick Pumpkin--they could make a person's morning.
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no subject
Date: 2005-10-17 04:42 am (UTC)Thanks for the snapshot--I always miss the midwest the most in autumn. Down here we get some shocking colors if the rain is just right in late August-early September, but all we've had is HOT.
Bought a pumpkin, which is currently residing on the front step. Sprayed the surface thoroughly with Bitter Apple to keep the squirrels away. They're bold as brass this time of year--one started eyeing the big orange acorn as soon as I put it down. "You have real acorns up to your eye sockets," I told it. "Keep your teeth out of my pumpkin."
We'll see how long that lasts.
I never tried Bitter Apple--let me know how it works. Maybe a Cayenne paste for accent?
I bought some stained glass pumpkins a couple years ago, when I couldn't carve anymore. I do miss having real ones...may have to plant gourds just for color.
Yesterday, I replaced the back of a hutch, switching out a piece of warped cardboard for a piece of oak finish paneling. Amazing how you can pay hundreds for a cabinet, and still find yourself stuck with a sheet of cardboard for backing. Oh well, maybe thin paneling isn't much better, quality-wise, but it certainly does look better.
We paid over $1100 for a three-bay set of bookcases/display cases. Cherry--and the back? It was press board covered by veneer.
Very annoying...
no subject
Date: 2005-10-17 11:55 pm (UTC)I tried Bitter Apple last year, as I recall. You need to replace it every so often, especially after rain.
I don't want to think about how much I would have to pay for a piece of all-wood furniture.