Wednesday 10-4-2023

We just got our mail and put up this mailbox decoration of Catbert, the evil HR director in the Dilbert cartoon series. I was planning to put up our Jack-0-Lantern, but my husband wanted this one. I forgot to take my phone, so I’ll have to get a pic of the front the next time we go out.

Unsplash

We’re due for some heavy thunderstorms today and tomorrow along with cool fronts that will take the highs into the 70s and 80s. The rain is supposed to start around noon. I’M READY! Woo HOOOO!

Amber is acting much more like herself now, although she is still over-exuberant at times. I went out with her this morning, just planning to walk around with her a bit. I didn’t put her on her leash. She immediately went to a spot in the yard, put her nose down, held the pose a few seconds, then started digging furiously, having probably found a mole, vole, or other ‘ole.’ I stopped her quickly and brought her back in. She seems to be healing well now. She is still on antibiotics and eye cream and I’m washing her wounds carefully with soap and water daily.

“No Rain, no flowers” 8×10 Hand-Painted Inspirational Sign on hard board – $16.95 with FREE SHIPPING to the contiguous U.S. – HandmadeHavenByLinda on Etsy

I hope this Wednesday is a good one for you.

Yea, It’s Friday 7-28-2023

We actually don’t have “Hot Man” on the mailbox because it has been TOO HOT for us to make the effort. AND the forecast is for “Hotter temperatures the next 10 days.” The website shows 100+ for nine of the next ten days and little to no chance for rain. My husband is hopeful that the grass will become his favorite ‘brown and crunchy’ so he won’t have to mow. I can’t blame him. I’m more than grateful our a/c is functional.

We haven’t changed the mailbox decoration in some time, basically due to laziness and having other priorities. Since school will be starting here in August, I talked to my husband about it. We agreed that we’ll change from

“Sylvester and Tweetie Pie”

to

“Yosemite Sam”

just in case the school bus kids (or someone else) watches what we put up.

We have a totally different traffic pattern in front of our house now with the bridge between us and town being rebuilt, so it will be interesting to see if we get any comments. (Oh, update on the bridge – we drove down to the site yesterday. They have finished two of the three supports needed for the bridge. Things have gone slower than the workers would like because the sporadic heavy rains we’ve been having fill the area with water that has to be pumped out in order to proceed. )

Journal – “Ship’s Wheel” Spiral Bound Hard Cover Hand-Painted with 3D Wooden Wheel – 5-1/2 x 7 hard cover spiral bound journal. 10 manila ‘envelope’ pockets inside. $17.99 with FREE SHIPPING to the contiguous U.S. Questions: lindawlewis1@gmail.com Link to item on HandmadeHavenByLinda

We’re leaving soon to get our mail, see if anyone else is there for Lunch Bunch, and shop for a few groceries before coming home.

I hope this day is a good one for you.

St. Pat’s Day 2023

“Leprechauns, castles, good luck and laughter
Lullabies, dreams, and love ever after.
Poems and songs with pipes and drums
A thousand welcomes when anyone comes.”
~Author Unknown

Happy St. Patrick’s Day to you! With the latest storms, we’ve had a return of winter-like temperatures – without the ice or snow – thank goodness. It’s 33 degrees F. here right now. I think it’s supposed to get to 50 this afternoon.

I just checked the 10-day weather forecast and it looks like I can get some spring plants in my garden next week! I’ll plan to take the weed barrier cloths off the raised bed planters and store those and the bricks somewhere safe and then see what’s available. I can’t wait!!

DIY Value Picture

We have Lunch Bunch today. I have no idea who will be there, since my friends aren’t using their phones reliably these days and don’t remember to call if they’re not coming. Happily, my husband isn’t bothered if we’re ‘stood up’ by the group. We’ll just go get our lunch at the regular Lunch Bunch time and hope we see at least some of them.

It’s not raining. It’s SUNNY. It’s above freezing. HOORAAAAAY!

Enjoy your day.

“St. Patrick’s Day is an enchanted time – a day to begin transforming winter’s dreams into summer’s magic.” ~Adrienne Cook

March Mailbox Decoration

If it will stop raining, we’ll put up “Sylvester and Tweetie Pie” on our mailbox as we leave to go to Lunch Bunch soon.

I found out two of our friends will be at Lunch Bunch. I’m hoping for the whole group, but I guess I shouldn’t be greedy…

“Well, Blow Me Down!”

Popeye.com

When we went for errands this morning, the wind was blowing strongly and pretty steadily. (We could even hear the wind blowing last night after we went up to bed and usually we don’t even hear STORMS.) It has continued to be gusty,winds blowing so strongly I felt I might blow away – and THAT’S a strong wind! – so I haven’t tried to work outside.

It looks like it MAY have calmed down, so I may get out there to cut our remaining rose bushes way down for the winter..

By the way, here’s OUR mailbox decoration of Popeye, one of our favorite cartoon characters. :0)

I hope you’re having a fun day.

Happy October 2022

Lewis Mailbox Decoration

Good morning! Happy October!

It’s 57 degrees right now. Can you believe it? I’m drinking it in. Ahhhhhh! I actually wore a hoodie to Lunch Bunch yesterday morning. It’s still getting warm-to-too-warm in the afternoons, but it looks like the back of summer has finally been broken. (Knock on wood.)

Since I’ve been having to baby my back, gardening efforts have essentially stalled. Maybe I can do a bit today. I’ll try it and see how it goes.

Happy belated birthday to my dear cousin-in-law-and-dear-friend, Murray.

Have a wonderful day, everyone!

Wednesday Thoughts 8-31-2022

lovethispic.com

We’re about to put this month to bed and I couldn’t be happier about it. I’m hoping we’ll get a cool-down soon – with more than a tease of rain chances – so I can enjoy being outside again.

IndiaMART

Even though my scales are still laughing at me, I saw improvement this morning. I found a new snack – 1 oz of Blue Diamond Lightly Salted Almonds with Sea Salt. The 1 oz is about 28 almonds. 170 calories. Filling and delicious. I’m enjoying them with a bottle of water after my yoga practice (DAY 47).

When we leave for errands today, we’ll change out our mailbox decoration. This scarecrow helps us welcome hopefully cooler weather with open arms.

Right Attitudes

I’m going to concentrate on my bookshelves in our bedroom today. I’ve moved a bunch of books out of there into the guest room, plus gathered a grocery bag of books to donate to the library. Today I’ll see if there is more to donate and then clean the shelves and reorganize the books.

Let’s make today a good one.

Fun Friday 8-5-2022

finehomedisplays.com

I hope you woke up this morning feeling good and ready for the day.

IndiaMART

I’m finally down a couple of pounds this morning. I had to look at the scales twice to be sure I was seeing them correctly. :0) Maybe my new regimen is starting to work. Since we are eating a fair amount of individual frozen dinners, I’ve made a list of the ones with the most veggies. I’m also serving a side veggie. We’re eating a LOT more fruit. I’m watching my husband’s blood sugar numbers, and so far, no problems. I’m on DAY 21 of doing my yoga stretches every day.

YouTube

We have Lunch Bunch this morning. I’m hoping everyone will be there. It seems that something has come up each week lately, so it would be really nice to see EVERYONE today and catch up on what they have been doing.

Yesterday I had gotten the mail and was starting to get back in the car when a car started to pass our driveway on the road and then stopped. I waited a moment, and then someone motioned for me to come on. I did, and then the window of the car went down. The lady introduced herself and asked if I was the one who made the mailbox decorations. I told her my husband and I did. She was really complimentary about our efforts and said she passed by our driveway to see what we had up. She said she is a teacher in Fort Smith and was asking if we would make her a ‘Snoopy’ or a ‘Roadrunner.’ I told her I would have to talk with my husband. I gave her my phone number. If she calls, I’ll be able to tell her that my husband agreed, what we would charge, and see if she wants us to go forward. I thanked her profusely for stopping and making my day. :0)

Colorations

My Christmas card project is coming together. I’m planning to start doing the inside of the cards this afternoon. The presents are now finished and I’ll bag them up to store until gift giving time.

We’ll leave for Lunch Bunch in about an hour and a half. We’ll get our mail, see if the trash has finally been picked up or if I need to call again. We’ll shop for groceries after lunch. And that’s our day.

I hope you’re having a fun Friday.

Thoughts on a Friday July 1, 2022

And we welcome July 2022 and Nathan from the Firefighters fundraising calendar from Australia. A great looking month it is, too. :0)

July 2022 – Matt Dixon – mattdixon.co.uk – via my friend, Susy Slais

I find it hard to believe it’s already July. I can feel my hair blowing as the time flies over my head this year.

We will have Lunch Bunch with Kay and her family today. My friend (the birthday girl) Linda is on her way to Tennessee today. Kay’s son and a friend will be visiting today. I’m not sure who will be there, but it will be fun to see them. On the way there, we’ll put up our 4th of July mailbox decoration, get our mail, and take some mail to the drive-through post office. Afterwards, we’ll do a bit of shopping before coming home.

Snoopy and Woodstock in celebration

So far today I’ve changed sheets and started laundry. I’m baking some salmon and steaming asparagus for our dinner tonight. I’m doing bookkeeping for June in-between.

Nice Friday, and looking forward to a long, hopefully lazy weekend. :0) I’m hoping that our neighbors down in the valley will do their annual fireworks display. That would be ‘gravy’ on an already pretty nice week.

Enjoy your day!

In For the Day Now

Sylvester and Tweetie Pie

We changed our mailbox decoration and got our mail as we left the house to go to Lunch Bunch. This decoration makes me smile. I had forgotten how hard we worked to get Sylvester’s whiskers and Tweetie Pie’s hair welded on. Everyone seemed pleased with the bags of lettuce from our garden. We had a nice time catching up.

Afterwards, we stopped at the grocery. We just finished putting everything away.

I think the weather people were optimistic when they said the high would be 71 today. It’s almost 1pm and it’s still only 58 and overcast. It’ll have to hurry if it makes it. So I’ll wait until tomorrow, when it hopefully warms up some, before I spend more time in the yard.

I’m going to enjoy a cup of coffee and rest a little and then I’ll go put together the sausage, egg and cheese bake for our dinner tonight.

We All Need a Hug

“Calvin & Hobbes.” This is one of my favorites of the mailbox decorations we’ve made.

Happy Friday Continued

iStock

Lunch Bunch was Kay, her husband, Bud, Linda, my husband and me today. It was good to catch up after all of us having various challenges – plus being iced in – causing us to miss lunch together for three weeks to a month now. I’m getting to know Kay’s husband better. He is a long time expert on using heavy equipment. He and my husband compare notes on engines, but I like it best when we just have general conversation. I laughed myself silly – with tears coming down my face and having to hold my arms around my middle – when Kay was talking about a heat pad with a built-in vibrator that Bud got to help her manage her back pain since her fall. He started to laugh and got a roguish look in his eye. He suddenly said, with his eyes twinkling, that Kay was ‘too old for a vibrator.’ He then blushed as he continued to laugh and my heart melted at his feet. He’s definitely a keeper. SO cute.

On the way to Lunch Bunch, we changed out our mailbox decoration. We put up our Tazmanian Devil.

We took the Snow Goon decoration back out to the shop and hung him up on his hook.

Thoughts on a Sunday 1-30-2022

rachelnewling.com

I love this drawing.

Good morning!

I’m grateful that we are enjoying sunshine and 40 degrees right now. Just beautiful for this time of year. I’m ‘enjoying-it-double’ because we’re due for a winter storm mid week…

We’ll put up our Snow-Goon mailbox decoration today.

We love Bill Watterson and his Calvin & Hobbes series. “A Snow Goon is a hostile, living snowman. They appeared in a single story arc from 12/31 1990 to 1/19 1991.” We don’t THINK ours is hostile, but you never know…

We’ll get our mail and make a run for supplies to prepare for the mid week coming storm. We never know this time of year when we will be stuck at the top of our driveway. We might be able to get down (one way or another) but we have to wait until our snow tires are able to get us BACK UP our driveway before we venture out. We try to stay stocked up so we have all we need if we get an unwelcome surprise.

Right now it’s so pretty it’s hard to believe we might get snowed in. The sun is shining brightly and it’s already 40 degrees F.! It’s supposed to get into the 50’s today. I’ll take it. :0)

Although my energy level is still not what it should be, I’m feeling ‘fit as a fiddle, otherwise.’ It’s great to be back in the land of the living. I’m keeping fingers crossed that my husband and I won’t pass this back and forth again.

Other than changing the mailbox decoration, getting our mail, and shopping for supplies, I’ll finish the vacuuming of the house so the bug spray guy who is scheduled for tomorrow won’t be appalled. Even this time of year it’s hard to keep up with our dog and cat shedding all over the place.

I hope that you’re safe, dry, and smiling today.

My Wishes for You in 2022

“My Wish for you in 2022:

May peace break into your house and may thieves come to steal your debts.

May the pockets of your jeans become a magnet for $100 bills.

May love stick to your face like Vaseline and may laughter assault your lips!

May your clothes smell of success like smoking tires.

May happiness slap you across the face and may your tears be that of joy.

May the problems you had forget your home address! In simple words …….

May 2022 be the best year of your life!!!”

~ Unknown

____________________

“I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re Doing Something.” ~ Neil Gaiman, British author

Happy 2022 from the Lewises – via Calvin & Hobbes – Bill Watterson

Thoughts on a Monday 12-27-2021

summerwind34.tumblr.com

My newest paperback in the J.D. Robb/Nora Roberts “In Death” series is on its way to me today! I’m re-reading the previous books so I’ll have them all fresh in my mind before I dive into the newest one, “Forgotten in Death.”

justforbooks.tumblr.com

Each of these books stands alone, and I’m really impressed by how little repetition there is from one book to another. I enjoy revisiting the crimes, but my favorite part of this series is the building up of friendships, the sharing of their lives and their interaction with each other. And especially the wonderful relationship of the main character, Lieutenant Eve Dallas and her love, Roarke.

My husband and I will change our mailbox decoration today to our celebration of another Happy New Year.

I’m finding it hard to believe that December is almost gone. AND 2021. May 2022 be a wonderful year for all of us.

Our weather is still absolutely amazing for December here in Arkansas. I noticed that we had the first day of winter on the 21st. Sometimes we have already had some snow by now. Our grass is green again. My husband refuses to mow in December and I can’t blame him. I’m still trying to get my body moving to get our planters in reasonable shape before we have a cold weather snap and it’s too cold to get out there. I’m TRYING to get one planter done each day, but so far, my INTENTIONS are speaking much louder than my actions.

I visited my friend Kay again yesterday. She is still in pain from her recent fall. She did find a rib support that seems to be helping her. I hate seeing her hurting. We all feel helpless to do anything but show we care.

Enjoy the last week in December!

Thoughts on a Saturday 12-4-2021

cuteness.com

I sent an email to a long-time friend on the 30th of November, his birthday, wishing him a happy celebration. Yesterday I saw his email address pop up on my incoming mail. It was one of his daughters, telling me he had died of complications from cancer. He was creative, funny with a wicked sense of humor. He loved his family. I will miss him.

This is the time of year when Amber, our 95-pound yellow lab, starts bringing deer parts into the yard. Over the years I have built up my ability to take care of this myself, rather than bothering my husband with it. Today it was just deer skin. This is the first time for this. I can only think that someone killed a deer, field dressed it, and left the parts he didn’t want close enough for Amber to find. GREAT. :0(

While I was out, though, I saw a rose in bloom! It looked especially lovely with most of our plants gone now. I cut it to bring inside, then found one red rose bud on another plant, plus two twice-blooming iris. It really lifted my spirits to be able to bring them inside.

We are about ready to run some errands. On the way out, we will put up this mailbox decoration. We will have a very quiet Christmas, so this will be a fun way to wish any passers-by a wonderful celebration.

Yesterday I finished the cards and ornament I was working on in my art room. I’ll take pics and share them with you in another post.

Have a fun Saturday!

Random Thoughts on a Monday 11-15-2021

(Sorry. Cannot read the credit.)

Chutti-flickr.com

I love this picture. I’m thinking of replacing mine on the blog with this cute little guy. :0)

Other than feeling older than dirt and weighing more than I would like, things are good here. Our weather may warm up and be nice enough that I can work on painting the greeter robot at the bottom of the driveway. He is ready for me to mask parts and get started re-painting.

First, though we have lots on our plate. We want to change the decoration on our mailbox as we go out to do errands today. We will put up Sylvester and Tweetie Pie.

Sylvester and Tweetie Pie

We have a doctor appointment, grocery shopping, and other errands to run this afternoon. When we get back, I’m hoping to work on the robot. If the weather people are correct this time, I’ll have this afternoon and tomorrow afternoon to try to get him refurbished.

Happy Monday!

Cold, Wet, and Blustery

Erin Forest-behance.net

One of the first things my husband and I did on waking this morning was to congratulate each other on doing our grocery shopping yesterday while the weather was nice. This morning we have 45 degrees F., rain, gloom, and blustery winds.

We will meet our friends for Lunch Bunch, but we won’t do anything else outside.

Cliff Harden, of Safe Elite Transformations 479-849-0520 safeelitetransformations@gmail.com called and then came to look at my porch yesterday afternoon. He made us a new ceiling, repaired damage, and then repainted our porch last year. One trim board had fallen down and needs to be reinstalled.

After I got a wonderful hug and he looked at the porch, he said he would be here sometime next week to fix it. When we met, I was his first customer after he used the pandemic lock-down to get his builder’s license and start his company after working for others for several years. Now he has three full crews working for him and is scrambling to keep up with the business. When you’re good, you stay busy. :0)

We got our Covid booster shots Wednesday. My husband and I are in the high-risk group. Even though my husband tends to think everything is a conspiracy, he agreed to the shots, and finally to the booster. Thankfully, neither of us had a bad reaction to the booster. Our son, who lives in Thailand, is in the group that has had bad reactions with heart problems. He is healthy, so has decided not to get the shots or be tested. Since our government has now decided that you MUST have been vaccinated or present a negative test in order to fly, he won’t be able to come home for any reason until the order is changed. We will be on our own until the world rights itself again.

I finished the re-painting of the back of Wonder Wart-Hog. We will hang up the mailbox decoration with the others in the shop now. Monday, weather permitting, we are planning to put up Sylvester and Tweetie Pie.

I have the paint, tape, and stepping stool ready to start the refurbishment of the greeter robot at the bottom of the driveway when the weather permits.

Since our weather is so unfriendly today, after Lunch Bunch I will clean a few things and then do a combination of playing in my art room, reading, and listening to YouTube compilations of “The Voice” auditions. All that talent just fills my heart and makes me feel good about the world!

Happy Friday!

Quite a “Thank You.”

Depositphotos

We just got back from Lunch Bunch and errands.

Our friend gave us quite a ‘thank you’ today for making the Freedom sign for her last week. She paid for our lunch, brought us a home-baked cake/bread with a huge, pretty bow on it, and hugged both of us. I feel that we should make her another sign for the extremely nice ‘thank you’! :0)

The sign said, “Don’t want $ – Want FREEDOM.” She stood on the side of the road across from a busy intersection off the expressway in Ft. Smith. She had a flag in one hand and the sign we made in the other. She said she had people honking and waving, and one man rolled down his window so he could yell, “Freedom!” and smile. It was a good experience for her and probably made some people who saw her happy.

(I’m happy to report that no one has damaged Yosemite Sam (our mailbox decoration) today. I’m relieved, and I hope to be able to one day take it for granted again, rather than driving down our driveway with dread. I will try to finish the repainting of the back of Wonder Wart-Hog this afternoon.

I hope that you are having a happy day, too.

Thoughts on a Friday – 11-5-2021

flickr.com

Just between us, I’m getting really tired of painting the Wonder Wart-Hog mailbox decoration. This is one of my husband’s favorite comic book characters, so I really tried hard – though totally out of my league – on painting him. After we cut him out, he was essentially a green blog with a head and a nose.

I finally finished doing the best I could, and my husband was pleased.

Then, while we had him up on the mailbox, someone sprayed the back with ‘something.’ When we brought it in, I had my husband put him on my painting table in the shop so I could clean him.

I spent an hour trying to get whatever it was off. I finally gave up and started trying to re-paint him.

I have now spent three days working on it again. I THINK I will be able to finish it today. I really don’t enjoy this piece. It points out my lack of expertise on painting body and muscle – something I try to avoid. :0)

I have never understood people who do this kind of thing. Thankfully, this is the first time it has happened to us in over 30 years of living here. I’m really hopeful that this was a one-time thing. If it keeps happening, we’ll have to stop displaying the decorations and that would take a lot of fun out of life for us and the people who DO like what we’ve done.

We have Yosemite Sam up now. Every time we go out, I brace myself to face another case of damage. I really hope this can be just a bad memory one day.

Cool!

Colourbox

It’s TOO cool and rainy here this morning! It’s 41 degrees F., gray, breezy, and rainy.

Cliff and his guys from Safe Elite Transformations 479-849-0520 are due here at 10:00 to re-install a board that trims the ceiling on the porch for us. When they made a new ceiling for us and painted the porch not too long ago, Cliff told me that there wasn’t much to attach the trim to. He’ll try to figure out a way to remedy that today. I can’t say enough about him and his group. If you need work, remodeling, building, or repair done in our area, you won’t find a better, more honest or hardworking company.

I will continue my repainting of the back of Wonder Wart-Hog, the mailbox decoration that was damaged when it was up on the mailbox for the first time. Someone really did a number on the back of it. It has been sprayed with ‘something’ that wouldn’t come off. I put a first coat on the green and white parts of the painting yesterday. When Cliff and his guys finish, if it’s not pouring, I’ll go out to the shop and see if I can get the second coat on. I’m hoping I can repair the damage. I’m disappointed that someone would do this. We have been putting the decorations up on the mailbox for years and years now without a problem. I hope we don’t have to stop.

Nice Lady Made My Day

123RF.com

On the way to Lunch Bunch today my husband told me that while he was repairing the mailbox front yesterday, a nice lady started to drive past and then stopped. She told him that she and her sister live on down the road from us and that they look every day to see what we have up on the mailbox! This is what we have up now –

Wonder Wart-Hog

We hear very little about our ‘artwork.’ I like to think that the school bus kids enjoy our stuff, but that may be only wishful thinking.

This kind lady told my husband that they loved what we do and that they were so pleased each time we changed the decoration. Isn’t that amazing?

My husband and I have now resolved to do a better job of changing the decorations more often, now that everyone is getting out more. What a NICE lady!

Wonder Wart-Hog is Finished!

We just went to do errands. It was NOT raining! Hooray!!!!!

We put up the new mailbox decoration as we left. Wonder Wart-Hog is one of my husband’s favorite comic book characters. This is NOT my favorite, and he was really beyond my painting capabilities, but my husband said it was, “Pretty good,” so I’m happy and relieved.

Thoughts on a Wednesday 10-13-2021

newslinq.com

Yesterday on the way home from our errands, a white-tailed doe jumped across the road in front of our truck. She was absolutely beautiful. Amber was in the back seat – one of her favorite places, but Amber didn’t see her. This gives you an idea –

WDFW

I worked an hour and a half on side 2 of “Wonder Wart-Hog” yesterday. Right now he looks like a big green blob with a head. Hopefully, I can get that to change. :0) This is the front –

It rained while I was working on the mailbox decoration in the shop. We’re supposed to get more rain today, tomorrow, and Friday. We may need a boat! All this rain is bringing cooler temperatures, though, and for that I’m grateful. We have our doors open to get a nice breeze through the house.

Unsplash

I’m tearing my hair out trying to find a replacement for our phone carrier. We changed the credit card used to make our automatic payments. We got a late notice. I called and they told me, “It takes 6 to 8 WEEKS for our system to recognize a change like that.” I’m still having trouble believing that. Anyway, I asked them to take us off the family plan and the unlimited everything we’re on. Only one of our phones is smart and we basically use our phones for emergencies and some texting. After spending almost an hour on the phone with them, they told me the plan we’re on is the cheapest they have. Since we’re seeing ads for half the price, I’m trying to research the question.

joemarino.org

My scales confirmed that I am past the 30-pounds-off mark now and have begun to make progress toward the next goal. :0)

Have a wonderful Wednesday.

Approval

My husband came out to the shop while I was working on the Wonder Wart-Hog mailbox decoration.

After looking at it for some time, he said, “Pretty good.” (high praise from him. )

So I’ll let it dry the rest of the day, then turn it over tomorrow to start side 2.

Whew!

Working on the Wart-Hog

Raising Children Network

This is Wonder Wart-Hog, one of my husband’s favorite comic book characters, marked for painting. The piece is about 2-1/2 feet tall. The outline for cutting him out on the CNC set up with computer-guided torch, was pretty simple this time. The painting – front and back – is intimidating because of all the detail.

I’ve been doing a bit each day. I think I will finish one side of him today after we get back from Lunch Bunch and errands. I hope my husband is pleased with my efforts. If he is, I’ll try to get a pic when the paint is dry before I turn the piece over to paint the second side.

Creating ‘Wonder Wart-Hog’

This is Wonder Wart-Hog. We cut the design out with our CNC set-up plus computer-guided torch from fairly heavy sheet metal. My husband used angle iron to make the piece along the bottom that attaches the design to the mailbox. We hang the piece from an iron stake on an old wheel base so that we can mark it for painting.

If you’ll look carefully, you can see his ears at the top. Wonder Wart-Hog is sitting on big boulder. You can see a knee.

Using our overhead projector, I marked key areas as best I could with magic marker front and back. I will try to refine this using a color printout.

This will be a difficult piece for me to paint. There is a lot of detail, most of which is done with paint, rather than cut out on the machine. It’s one of my husband’s favorite comic book characters. He overcame some problems in trying to do the creation and welding of the attachment piece.

I’ll do the very best I can to make his character come to life.

Thoughts on a Sunday 10-3-2021

Onegreenplanet.org

We received some much welcome rain the past couple of days. My husband is muttering because the rain means our grass will grow and he’ll have to mow again. :0) It was nice. We opened front and back doors, enjoying a beautiful breeze and nice, fresh air throughout. I’m very happy the worst of the summer hot and humid is behind us now.

It was a fight, but we got the “Wonder Wart-Hog” mailbox decoration outline cut out on the CNC table last night. I don’t have a copy of the image we’re using, but I’ll take pics as we progress. We hadn’t done a new decoration for a long time. My husband had to figure out again how to make the program work that converts an image to G-Code, the language the computer can follow. We then had problems because the image was WAAAY too large. We came back in, changed the dimensions, and went back out to the shop, but the computer out there wasn’t seeing the changes. After several times back and forth, he figured out that while he saved the changes, he hadn’t run the “G-code” part of the program again. He did that, saved it, and we went back out. This time things looked good.

We ran the program without the torch turned on to make sure the torch wouldn’t run off the edge of the sheet metal anywhere. We had only part of one 4×8 sheet to use, so if we made a mistake, that would be the end of the project until we were able to go to Ft. Smith to buy more. Happily, it looked like we had a good amount for the image.

We changed the torch tips, then turned on the air compressor and the torch. I’m always fascinated to watch the torch move on its own, moving in a mysterious ‘dance’ over the sheet metal in a magical way, cutting a line trough the metal. We’ve had problems in the past with the torch acting up, but this time everything went well. The torch was going exactly the right speed to cut through the metal like butter.

The next step will be for my husband to make the metal attachment that we use to attach the piece to the mailbox. His hands shake now, so this may be a real challenge – one of the reasons we haven’t made many decorations lately. We are not in a hurry, so I’m encouraging him to do the welding in really short sessions, waiting for a less-shaky day or part of the day. If we can get this done, the next step will be marking the design on the cut out metal.

A young lady showed up at the door last night, asking if we had seen her dog. I’m not sure what kind of dog she had, but the picture showed a medium-to-larger sized dog with brindle coloring. She said her name is Bella. We hadn’t seen her. She left me her phone number. I will text her later to see if she has found her sweet dog.

I hope you’re having a good Sunday.

New Month – Different Mailbox Decoration

It was my husband’s turn to choose the mailbox decoration. He chose Fritz the Cat.

Fritz the Cat is a comic strip created by Robert Crumb. Set in a “supercity” of anthropomorphic animals, the strip focused on Fritz, a feline con artist who frequently went on wild adventures that sometimes involved sexual escapades. Crumb began drawing this character in homemade comic books when he was a child. Fritz became one of his best known characters, thanks largely to the motion picture adaptation by Ralph Bakshi. ~ Wikipedia

Since it is harder for us to get the decorations down from their hangars in the shop these days, we are changing the decorations less frequently. We are focusing on cartoon characters in the hope that they will make kids on the bus smile and maybe bring some nice memories as drivers pass our driveway.

Getting Older

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Hahahahahahahahah!

I woke up crackling and popping this morning. Even my husband heard it!

I will do a longer yoga practice this afternoon to see if I can improve things. That and W-D40….

My husband found an image of Wonder Wart-Hog, one of his favorite comic book characters from his childhood, and wants us to do another mailbox decoration. “Wonder Wart-Hog (the “Hog of Steel”) is an underground comic book character, a porcine parody of Superman, created by Gilbert Shelton and first published in 1962.” (Wikipedia)

He worked on the computer much of the afternoon, coming up with a program he hopes will work as it should to translate the image to the computer out in the shop and allow us to use a computer-guided torch to cut the image out of sheet metal. Then he’ll make an attachment that allows us to bolt the decoration to our mailbox, welding it to the sheet metal. We’ll use an overhead projector to mark the key areas of the bare sheet metal front and back. Finally, I’ll paint both sides of the piece plus the attachment. I’ll post a picture when it’s finished. :0)

Right now we have Godzilla on the mailbox. We’ll be exchanging it for Fritz the Cat in another week.

Good Start to the Day

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(The above is NOT what I’m making for my friends, but the picture make me smile. What FUN this child has had, thinking of something and trying to make it come to life.)

Since our heat index here in Arkansas is forecast to be 110+F. this afternoon, , I decided to get my body moving earlier than usual this morning and get out to the shop to continue work on the refurbishment of the dragonfly plus working on my Christmas presents for friends.

I’m working on the eyes of the dragonfly now. I cut a black rubber ball with knobs on it in half and glued them on the dragonfly. Now I am using glitter glue paint to try to make the ‘eyes’ sparkle. I finished the main part of the work on the 6 Christmas presents out there. As soon as they dry, I’ll work on the accents and finishing touches. Upstairs in my art room, I think I’ll finish the 3 other Christmas presents I’m working on up there today. I love it when I figure out what I want to try to do early and have lots of time to work without feeling rushed. I find myself remembering lots of happy times with each of the people I’m making a present for, hoping they’ll enjoy the gift. :0)

Since today is the first day of September, and kids are in school here now, we will change the mailbox decoration, hoping to make the bus riders smile as they pass our driveway. Here is the decoration we’re putting out today –

Godzilla

Have a happy first day of September!