Deathstar the Christmas Tree

            Today I shall share with you the story of our first Christmas tree, since 'tis the season.

            For those of you who've follow this blog, you’ll know that over the spring and summer, Colleen and I were involved in some extensive renovations to convert her parents’ house into two separate units – one for us and one for them. I don’t think I mentioned it before, but we actually did move over the summer as well.

            Anyway, Colleen went out hunting Christmas trees with her family, only looking for one for them since we don’t really have space for one. However, while they were out, they came across what can only be described as a spherical tree and Colleen fell in love with it. So, they grabbed it as well as their own tree.

            As it turned out, this particular tree had been targeted by an insect that specifically eats the tops (and only the tops) of evergreen trees. Since the tree was a write-off anyway, it was given for free (with thanks for saving them the work of getting rid of it themselves).

            The tree was promptly brought home and suspended from the ceiling – yes, that’s right, it’s hanging from the ceiling – with a container for water attached to its stump. Today, we finally got it decorated with our combination of traditional and geeky decorations.

            So, without further ado, I give you the first Christmas tree of our own Colleen and I have had – Deathstar, the spherical Christmas tree. It’s a shame that no future tree is likely to compare.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

I Did It Again

            This blog is probably coming out late because I was up late and then the internet died. Why was I up late, you ask? Dungeons and Dragons.

            Yesterday we had a power outage that lasted for a few hours, during which my wife and I played Sorry! With my sister-in-law. Then we played Apples to Apples. After that, we started talking about what board game to play next and, silly me, I suggested playing Dungeons and Dragons.

            Why was that a silly idea you ask? Because of what happened the last time I suggestedplaying D&D to people when I didn't think it was actually going to happen. I ended up as a Dungeon Master.

            Not that I mind being a DM – I thoroughly enjoy it and I think it’s a great exercise for any author. It’s just that I'm a bit busy right now, what with moving (okay, so at this point it’s unpacking), ongoing renovations, making chainmaille and shows, taking on more work is a bit crazy. And, as I mentioned in my post last yearish, being a DM is a lot of work.

            This time, I know a lot more about running a game (which is a good thing, because the game’s designed to have 4-6 players (plus the DM) and I'm running it for 2), but I haven’t had to thoroughly plan anything out, so I'm making up everything as I go along. It’s a huge challenge, but, again, a wonderful creative exercise. Keeps me on my toes.

            Did I mention I'm trying to find time to get my family together, too, so we can continue the game we started last summer? Then I’ll be running two games at the same time. Talk about crazy.

            That’s the most important thing about life, though. You have to find time for the things you love. Otherwise, what’s the point.

            Oh, look! The internet is back. Quick, upload, upload, upload!!!

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

A Callus Remark

            There is a danger to taking a month off your regular work to renovate, particularly when your endurance to work relies heavily on calluses – such as the ones made by holding pliers while making chainmaille. If you don’t use ‘em, you lose ‘em.

            I've got a lot of metal to bend before ConBravo! next weekend, so that’s about all I can say. Long story short, my hands hurt.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Playing with Paint

            Returning to our renovations channel, this week has given us the start of painting (yaaaay!). While the colour scheme was selected over a month ago, it was the first time I’d ever gone to choose paint colours.

            Now, I've lived in the same hose pretty much my whole life and I grew up in a house with all white walls (at some point, one room was given blue cloudy wallpaper, my brother’s room was painted a light blue and some of the white was changed to a cream) and most of the houses I've been exposed to were along similar lines. All or most of the rooms the same colour (usually white or close enough). So, I thought, easy enough – pick a colour for the walls (white), and one for the trim. Not so.

            You see, my wife’s household is predominantly populated with people with ADD, and that means no two rooms are the same colour. White is entirely vetoed.

            It was relatively easy for my wife and I to agree on the colours for the work room and the bedroom, but the living/dining/kitchen posed more of a problem – mainly because we only had cool colours so far and my wife (and her mother) were encouraging a room with warm colours. I’m not a fan of most warm colours.

            Then my wife remembered everyone in the special features of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings talking about how great Bag End was and how they wanted to live there (particularly Peter Jackson). So, we watched The Hobbit to scout out colours and fell in love. We chose a light yellow and a dark brown for the trim – deciding to use the same trim throughout the house (at my suggestion) for some measure of continuity between the rooms.

            Those were the colours we were working with this week. On Friday, my mother-in-law came home from work to find a previously raspberry red room white with primer (when they tell you that light colours make a room bigger, it’s true!) and on Saturday it had turned to yellow. I told her that I was thinking of painting it pink next and then have it a different colour every time she came home from work.

            Today (Sunday), we painted the trim brown and, wow, are we happy with that room. It looks very much like Bag End, as desired. We were a bit worried at first because the brown paint looked a little too, as my wife put it, “baby poo” before it dried. We were also not looking forwards to putting on two coats, as baseboards are a pain to paint without painting the floor. We lucked out on both accounts – not only did the paint darken to what it was supposed to be when it dried, the first coat was all it needed. Not because it covered everything well enough, but because the way it went on had an antique, weathered woody look. It was a happy accident that turned out better than we could have hoped.

            Hopefully the next time you hear about renovations, it will be accompanied by pictures – and we’ll be done and moved in.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Writer, Chainmailler... Roofer?

            You know what I shouldn't do on a Sunday before blogging? Roofing. Now there is a tiring job.

            One thing that always happens when renovating is the discovery of more tasks that need to be done. Roofing is one of the ones that holds up the rest of the work because there’s no point in repairing water damage if more water is going to be getting in.

            Having never roofed before, this was a new experience for me. I've been on roofs before and, luckily, I'm pretty good with heights – as long as I feel I have solid footing or I have something to hold on to. Working on a roof is just a bit more challenging because you need to be doing things with your hands while keeping yourself stable.

            My father-in-law, being the one with experience, did most of the work, of course. I was mostly holding shingles, keeping things stable and scampering up to and down from the roof (down is always harder than up, what’s with that?). I also now have a far better understanding of how shingles work, as well as far more respect for roofers. Seriously, have you seen the way they toss around bundles of shingles? I can barely drag one along the ground.

            Well, there’s more roofing to be done tomorrow (today, for those of you reading this), so I’d better head off. Who knows what heights I’ll have climbed to by next week?

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Renovating

            I've just come home from a day of renovations to discover that it is, in fact Sunday – aka blogging day. I almost missed it. Didn't this just happen, like, a week ago or something?

            Anyway, yes, renovations. My wife and I are soon moving from my parents’ house to her parents’ house. This seems like a simple enough process, except that we are first converting the house into two separate apartments. This is because I have allergies to a number of their pets, plus they want to downsize and eliminate possible clutter space and so we’ll have our own space.

            It’s an interesting process, made difficult by the fact that there is a limited amount of work we (who know next to nothing about renovating) can do without my father-in-law (who knows how to do just about anything) who’s working a lot right now.

            Nevertheless, progress is being made. Various walls were torn down and, over this weekend, new ones were put up. Along with my wife’s cousin (another renovating rookie who, incidentally, looks a lot like Hagrid), I learned how to put up drywall and we became pretty good at it over the weekend.

            The downside is that my hands are completely worn out from all the work we did today, so I'm going to stop typing now. You may be hearing more about renovations in the future – if nothing else, you should be getting pictures when everything’s done.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.