Chapter 314

Periodically Bob plays musical cars and I never know what I'm going to find when I burst into the garage. This week the PT Cruiser has been feeling poorly this week and was moved to the other garage. This leaves the E-Type, Fairlaine, and XJS are all in the front garage. 

 It all started with a bird feeder to entertain Nitro while he was in his catio. For some reason, I've really come to enjoy watching these little guys. This summer, Nitro and I would go sit on the patio together while I did my online stuff and watch all the little birdies come and go. These little goldfinches have to wait in line to get a chance at one of the feeders.

 I got a new Silhouette cutter. It's amazing! For a couple hundred dollars I got a machine that, between software and machine, cost over $13,000 when I was working in Visual Communications class. The little freebie program that came with my cutter has more ability than the $6,000 software that we had to buy for class so many years ago. Making a sign for our building was my first official project. It looks pretty professional.

School is steaming down upon me more quickly than we are going to be ready in the shop area. We've spent a lot of time "putting things to rights" and haven't even scratched the surface. I've managed to get one box car emptied all by myself so far and the parts room is slowly filling up so I'm making progress. To keep things simple I've pretty much put things back in the same place sans the many, many garbage cans of junk I threw out last year. Kurt, the new instructor, has quite a job ahead of him taking all the tools that were stashed in several locations and getting them combined into the tool room in some fashion that makes sense to him. My job is to figure out how Kurt thinks so I can be helpful and also find things after he puts them away. Over the years I've learned how Fred thought and could find about anything he managed to squirrel away and not find later. Fred certainly was a stasher and a squirreler. Kurt is NOT.

We were lucky enough to get new desks (and a new clock with no paint) for our classroom. We are unlucky enough that there is literally not room to walk around the tables now. We still have one more day before school starts to get all this worked out.

I'm still throwing stuff away by the cartloads.

I painted Kurt's office with scrap paint Bob poured together. That office hadn't been painted since the building was new in 1982 so it needed it. Last year's work order to paint the office was denied because that will happen during the remodel. It did not.

Although some unidentified substance was decopaged into the floor by the summer crew, the walls look great. We'll just have to be sure a cabinet is placed in the corner.

Workers are still out in our shop doing whatever workers do.

More consulting amongst the contractor and workers and items come up that weren't planned for.

I finally realized that I had been stepping over this hydraulic jack in the bathroom and it needed to be moved somewhere less in the way. Check out the monitor to the security system right next to the emergency shower.

This scissor lift is everywhere in the shop that I need to be. He's pretty good about working around me if I ask him too.

I made a quick run to the SuperMall  Premium Outlet Collection of Seattle to get some new shirts. These little fire truck carts are so cute, but the warning on the luggage bag was disturbing. Although I would like to believe that a "Do not place child in bag" notice is unnecessary, I know it is. I also know that there are people out there that would do it despite the warning.

As I said, the Cruiser is ailing and Bob is working on putting new wheel bearings on.

Sometimes that involves an awkward pile of wood along with the part in the press. Sometimes it works and sometimes the pile of wood explodes along with Bob's vocabulary.

While he is out in the garage exploding piles of wood, I make another class sign, this time on Plexi-glass. I LOVE MY CUTTER!

The 15 month stats are in!

30 1/2" tall

24lbs, 4 oz.

47 cm head

...and healthy!

(She wasn't really wearing a bikini top, Grama added that.)

 Reagan has a sunglass thing. Here she takes her sunglasses off so she can get a better look at the speck on the grass.

Running at the park.

Feeding the pack.

Spotting airplanes with Daddy at the airport using her crackers to direct them in.

Cousin Payton holds Reagan on her lap. You can't argue that they share the same complexions! The Swedish blood sure runs strong here!