First, the good news. The stain on the kitchen doorway is fixed!!! It's all pretty and even. I still need to put one more coat on the whole doorway and a second on the board that caused all of the problems, but it's fixed and it's beautiful and I didn't ruin our house. Such a relief. 
themselves this weekend, and then we can have our window put back together! Isn't it pretty and glossy? Lessons learned from all of this? (1) Don't rely on your sketchy memory of the brief lesson in staining that your father gave you a decade ago. Look at the directions on the can of stain, and if you have any more questions, look it up. (2) Don't try to eke every last drop of stain out of the can. Take your cheap butt to the store and buy a new can of stain when the old one starts to get gloppy. (I know we could probably just add lacquer thinner to the old can, but as simple as that sounds, I'm pretty sure that that's a learning curve I don't want to mess with. And I just got my nails done).
s to the bad news. You would think with having already stained the large doorway and the built-in, I would have figured out how to stain by now, but that turns out to not be the case. Once again, please note how glossy both the window and the doorway look. Now please notice how the finish on the large doorway does not have any gloss to it at all. Yeah, different finishes. That's kind of a problem. We used the same exact product on all the wood, but I changed my application method which has resulted in a glossy finish in some places and a satin finish in others. Both mr. flyskim and I like the glossy finish better, so that means in order to match the finish throughout the dining room, we have to sand down the two largest and most time consuming pieces in the room, the large doorway and the built-in, and apply a few new coats of stain. (If anyone who reads this actually knows what they're doing refinishing wood, please don't hurt yourself too badly laughing at me.) 
often post pictures of their wonderful and delicious looking meals, so I thought I'd take a page from that book and show you our dinner (so monkey see, but I don't care). Fish sticks!!! Actually, these are last week's fish sticks, but we had them again tonight. They were both yummy and convenient. Come fall, I promise to do something much more impressive food-wise, but our kitchen gets direct sun in the afternoon, and the quicker I can put something together and get out of the kitchen, the better.
weekend. The picture to the right is the doorway in it's halfway corrected stage, and it will stay this way until this weekend. So, what when wrong? I tried to fix a problem with half set stain and ended up with some pretty horrific blotchy areas on the top portion of the right side of the doorway. The left side was looking so nice that I got a little overconfident. Combine that with a desperate need to be done with something (anything), and there lies the path to big, giant FAIL. 
able wood filler or if somebody decided to fill the crack in the wood with plaster. Don't laugh. We've already had to chip plenty of plaster out of the kitchen door frame, so it's a definite possibility. There was also some flexible caulk like what you would use on a tub or a sink filling a larger crack in the frame. I'd like to call these creative solutions, but the part of me that's got a stick up my ass is still a little stunned that anyone would cut a corner like that with such a beautiful piece of wood. Anyway, I haven't figured out what to do about the white vein in the frame, but the lazy part of me that thinks I'm too rigid has seriously considered using nail polish. What this really tells me is that I have a bit of research to do before addressing this problem because I strongly suspect that beauty products are not the answer.
Here's a picture of mr. flyskim (left) starting the kitchen door at the header. We stopped after this piece was done to remove the last of the paint from the cracks where the parts of the doorway were joined. On the right is the doorway with its first coat of stain completed. When both the window frame and the doorway are done, I can prime and paint the windows themselves. We'll probably also make a trip to Rejuvenation Hardware this weekend to pick up new window rope and weights and new hardware. It'll be a joy to have both of the double hung windows in proper working order. We've been propping the left one open with a volume of Shakespeare's collected works almost since we bought the house three years ago.
And even though the heat officially broke a week ago, it didn't become really livable until yesterday. Over the weekend, it was still all belly, all the time. That, and looks of pure misery and hatred because, you know, the hot weather was all our faults. But now that everyone has cooled off, things are getting back to normal with the exception of a slight escalation in the ongoing kitty domination war to make up for lost time.
went to the gym three times a week, walked on the treadmill, used the stationary bike, lifted some weights. The usual. I wasn't so delusional that I thought I was actually athletic, but I thought I did okay. Then mr. flyskim and I decided to train for the 2010 Portland Oyster Urban Adventure Race, and I had a very rude awakening regarding my actual level of fitness. (I know these aren't Rocky Mountain oysters, but did you really want a picture of buffalo testicles?) 
I don't run. Or at least I didn't 10 weeks ago. I still don't really run, more like walking with 2 minutes of running thrown in here and there. A friend who is an experienced runner is putting together my training plan, and I am still shocked at how hard it is to run at 5 MPH for 2 minutes at a time. I don't know how people do this, but my coach assures me that if I just keep at it, the periods of running will get longer and longer until I'm running actual distances. Hopefully, my butt will get smaller, too. (About one size. Not looking for miracles, just want to wear my skinny jeans again.)
And I don't think I've seen a slide like this since I was seven. I remember thinking that this kind of slide was so huge and just went round and round forever, and you would be going so fast that you would just shoot off the end. But one of the dads hanging out with his family went down the slide as we walked by, and he got stuck about halfway down. Am I just remembering it wrong?.jpg)
There was something very Charlie Brown Christmas about this little sticky plant. In fact, it reminds me of something we did to our lilac tree a couple of weeks ago, and my fear that we killed it by cutting it to the ground in the middle of July instead of waiting until the fall. But it's sprouting now, so it's okay..jpg)
By this point in the walk,I was hot, hungry and tired, so pictures fell by the wayside. We had lunch at La Bonita on NE Alberta, and I've never been so happy to see a taco in my life. The fact that it was delicious was just a bonus..jpg)
It's supposed to cool back down to regular temperatures in the next week, so here's hoping for some good progress on the project back log.
Every average man you know will tell you paint and stain dry much more quickly when the thermometer goes way up. At least, I know that paint does and suspect the same of wood stain (at least the one we've been using because it's dried fairly quickly in normal temperatures and our wood is porous). So this recent heat wave really threw a damper into my plans to have my way with our dining room window this last weekend. I was going to complete painting and staining of the trim, and given the non-existent state of my motivation for this project over the past several months, I was excited and energized because I was expecting to make great strides with a little extra time off work.
. . . and the French doors (below), which are currently waiting for glass.
My original plan was take two days off and use my long weekend to paint and stain the window frame and the doorway into the kitchen. If I was feeling ambitious, I was also going to start on the crown moulding. Well, that didn't happen.
start painting until late that afternoon. Then I realized that my mad cutting in skillz (Please note the sarcasm. No one my age should ever use the phrase "mad skillz" without it.) were neither as mad nor as skillful as I remembered, and I taped off the windows and to-be-stained wood pretty quickly after my first mistake. But I ran out of tape, so I could only do a single coat of paint on two sections of the window. For reference, above is a picture of our window when we had just moved into the house: all white and bland and stripped of character.And here's what it looks like with all of the windows down an
d most of the moulding taken off. Please also enjoy in this shot the beauteous Pip in the right-hand window taking in some fresh evening air.
I ran to the store for more tape Friday morning and completed my second coat of paint on all sections of the window between 10 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. The painted part of the frame is the trim that would be on the outside of the house if not for the storm windows. When we put our o
riginal windows back in, the stained wood will be on the inside of the house and the painted wood on the outside. The color is called Night Shade, and it's dark brown with just a hint of purple. It will look fantastic when we finally get around to painting our house pale green. But since we had the windows down for repair and staining, I figured why not go ahead and paint. There will never be a better time. It was in the mid-80s on Friday which is when I noticed that the two coats of paint put on the third section of window that morning dried awfully fast. Knowing that our house holds onto heat and that it was only going to get hotter over the weekend, I decided not to risk the staining. There's nothing worse than gloppy, uneven stain, and I'm not skilled enough at it to try staining under less than ideal conditions. It's supposed to drop to the low 80s sometime in the next 10 days, and I'll give it another try then. 
And just to illustrate the current unhappiness in our household over the 100+ temperatures, here is a shot of our little man coping with the heat the best he can. The floor of our house has become dangerous territory over the past couple of days. You never know when you'll encounter a random kitty belly. Okay, running through the sprinkler now.
So far, this is the best dress I've ever made. I don't usually wear pink, but this fabric just spoke to me. I've done a lot of things with this pattern that I've never done before. The dress is fully lined (never lined a garment before), and I put in my first invisible zipper. Looks kind of pretty from the outside, don't you think? Well, aside from the blue sewing marker. Now for the ugly.
I need to slipstitch the lining to the zipper and the bodice lining to the skirt. It also needs hemming. However, I forgot to check the length of the pattern, so it's a little short, even unfinished. I have a beautiful piece of lace to tack to the lining to see if it (a) fixes the length problem and (b) looks good. If both (a) and (b) don't work out, I may have to learn to live with exposing my knees to the world. I may be looking for opinions later.
The Dollar and a Half Cardigan
This needs a little more work. All the pieces are finished, but it needs blocking. Those two lumps at the top are the sleeves. And then there's the putting it together. The last complete sweater I made was over 20 years ago, and I just pieced it together like you would a shirt, so I'm going to try to be a lot neater. Then I have to pick up the stitches for the button band. And get buttons. And sew them on. But it's nearly finished, I swear.
Juliet
This has been nearly finished since last year. Blocking, weaving in the ends and buttons are the only things left. I'm not convinced it suits me, but I'm going to finish it before I make a final judgment.
Trapeze Jacket
This is farther along than the picture shows. I've completed the body and am about halfway through the collar. Problem is, I was frustrated with sucking at short rows and stopped working on it, and now I can't remember where I am in the pattern. So, I'll have to rip out the collar and redo it, knit the sleeves and do all of the finishing work. This will probably be the last thing on this list that I finish.
Tangled Yoke Cardigan
I've completed the body up until where the sleeves are to be joined, and I've started the first sleeve. They're knit in the round, and I couldn't get that this was just the same as a sock, so I had to restart the sleeve three times before it finally took. I have to keep plugging away at this, or it will meet the same fate at the Trapeze Jacket.
Socks for mr. flyskim
Nothing to see here. Basic 2x2 rib, top down. He has really big feet, so I hope I have enough yarn.
And that's just the knitting and sewing. We have a couple of house projects going on, but that's for another post. Wish me luck. This will keep me busy for the rest of the summer (or longer). Then I can start planning all of the new projects . . . Oh, who am I kidding? They're already planned, but I can't start anything else before I at least whittle down the list. Anything more and I'll need a 12-step program, and I don't think there's a Crafter's Anonymous out there.
en though I was happy in my job. And I got it, and it was the best career move ever. So then I raced on a dragon boat team at the Portland Rose Festival. That's me on the left with my paddle down and grinning at the camera. Didn't love it, but I committed and stuck with it. And now I can say I've swallowed Willamette river water and lived to tell about it, even if I never step foot in a boat again for the rest of my life. I took some professional classes. I started knitting and sewing again. And I started reading all of these great, creative blogs, and I wanted to do that, too.
