Not So Much Fun

I woke up this morning, feeling pretty good about myself.  I was skipping work, and with it came that wonderful feeling of not having to be somewhere I normally have to be.  But then, later this afternoon, I was texting a coworker.  She messaged me to thank me for turning her on to Netflix.  She'd been sitting in front of the TV all day.  I replied that she may never move from in front of the TV again.  Then I asked if the plant had worked today.  She said no.  Some component areas worked, but most of the plant was off.  That just took the air right out of my sails.

Playing hooky is not so much fun when the school is closed anyway.

What is fun, however, is being almost done stripping these bricks.

I've only got some bits behind the stove to clean up,

and the base to strip, then it'll be all done.   I'm thinking one more good going over with a wire brush, and a good washing, and they'll be ready to prime.

Speaking of washing, after wearing out two, yes two, count 'em two spray bottles,

not to mention my hand, while I was up in Batesville yesterday, I said to myself, "Self, why don't you get one of those bottles you can pump up and spray stuff."  That's exactly what I did.

The routine has been to apply stripper, let it loosen the paint, scrub it with a wire brush, then rinse with plain water.   This pump up bottle has made it so much faster, and easier on my hand, as well.

By the way, I've also worn out two wire brushes. 

I do have a wire brush attachment for my drill, but I can't get as much torque with that one.  I mean, when I really put pressure on the bricks, it seems to strain the motor too much, so if I want to get the paint out of those deep grooves, I have to do it by hand.

In the midst of all that brick scrubbing, I made good progress on my sister in law's hat.

Being as I'm working with two strands, it's knitting up pretty quickly.  I had a little problem when one of my balls of yarn decided to be ornery. 

I've been knitting from both the outside and the inside of each ball, but this one...well, it was being a butt.   I tried and tried to find the center pull end, but the whole thing was just knotting up tighter and tighter.  I decided to wind it into a cake on my ball winder, and it decided it didn't want to unroll from the outside either.  We had a few words, which I will not repeat here, but the yarn eventually saw things my way.

This morning, it was cool enough again that I could open the windows, but by mid afternoon, I had to shut them and turn the air conditioner back on.  Still, it put me in the mood to start putting out my fall decorations.

That's as far as I've gotten, other than getting my new mums into pots.  I haven't decided what I'm going to put on my front porch.  Last year, I had some fake hay, but I didn't keep it.  I don't really have a place to store such things without mice and/or spiders getting into them, so I got rid of it.  This year, I was thinking of getting something like an apple crate to set my fake pumpkin on.  I almost bought one at Wal-Mart, but as soon as I picked it up, it started falling apart.  I put it back, because I'm not going to pay all that money for something crappy. 

I don't know.  I'll figure out something. 

And lastly, I finally got a halfway decent picture of one of the twins before Rylea scared it off.

My little spike buck showed up, too.  I'm glad of that.  I don't see him very often.