Progress Check

Today was a welding day. It was pretty nice out until the wind kicked up later, so that made it easier to handle. My deadline loometh. As usual, it looks like some of my welds will still be hot when I'm loading the trailer.

This doesn't look like much but actually represents hours of work. They're "trunks" of trees for my famous "attractive little groupings of trees." They start out about 8 feet long and then I have to kind of mangle them by hand bending them through my vice so they look artfully random, then they get cut into three different lengths, again, randomness is the goal, so I obsess about varying this slightly, then all the ends need to be rounded off on the grinder. The little deals hanging off the front of my bench are the first branch unions.

These are also hand bent, then cut into a couple of lengths, slag removed, and welded. They are actually more "V's" than "W's", but you know-- it's "count down to Weezer week".... So they remind me of "w's"....

So my entire day amounted to basically this-- a pile of partially completed trees, only two of the sizes. I still have a pile of the smallest size trunks waiting for branches. The day began alright. My iPod was cooperating, playing all awesome music so I could at least jam out, but it kind of went downhill. My mojo kind of abandoned me as the day went on, and somehow the old iPod played B-side, after flippin' sterogum freebie, after B-side. Not jamtastic, not at all, and i was too busy to remedy this. I had wind problems, grounding issues-- without getting all technical-- both things that can make your welds less sweet than usual. I pride myself on my wicked welds, even though most people wouldn't know what they're looking at, so it pisses me off when they're less than perfect.

My hand began hurting too. This happens more the older I get (boo). I have a super strong grip from all this. If you ever find yourself dangling from a cliff by one hand I'm the gal you want to grab your wrist. I may be too weak to actually pull you up, but at least we can have a nice long talk while you hang there. When I do a ton of the same thing though, as with this "production mode," my thumb joint feels like it's about to give out. It's gotten bad enough that I couldn't even hold my toothbrush once when I was on a really tight deadline and couldn't stop.

The jewelry is coming along nicely. I'm making a lot more than I have other years in light of the whole econ sitch. I'm guessing $20 things may be easier to sell than $85 and up stuff. We'll see.

In other fasinating news, drumming practice went surprisingly well today. I still want actual drums, because the cookie sheet keeps sliding all over as I stomp on it and I keep having to fish it out from under the chair while trying not to lose the beat, an issue that I highly doubt plagues other musicians. But this is just a new-- hobby I guess. It's not like I have a deadline. No big gigs booked yet or anything. Pillow and cookie sheet it is, for now.

I needs to go running now. Take a listen to "Island In The Sun" by, you guessed it, Weezer in the player-- the song I'm going to start out to. It's not hard at all, so don't be afraid. You'll like.