Good Friday

I work up at 4:30 AM on Friday, my day off! I stayed in bed until 5:30 and then got up. I made a cup of coffee and filled in the Blog. Since I didn’t have to go to work, I fixed some soft boiled eggs for my breakfast. When I was done eating, I made six hard boiled eggs for Easter coloring later this weekend.

I putzed around A LOT (mostly watching the Today show) and finally was shaved and showered by 10:00 AM. Then I headed out. Please note that I thought I was good to go for staying home until Saturday and work on the clock. But, I saw a segment in my Wood Magazine that explained about prepping and staining. They said that the end grain of wood is more porous than the face of a board and thus attracts more stain and darkens.

Duh! I already know this from making and staining all that bedroom furniture. I just never knew how to fix it.

But they said you could mitigate this by  sanding the end grain with twice the grit you use on the face of the boards. Since the lightest grit I currently have for the clock is 240, I will need at least 500 grit for the edges of the star and the inside and the outside of the wagon wheel.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch. I was playing peek-a-boo with two HUGE crows. I swear they are bigger than the hawk last year. But, every time I grabbed my camera, they flew off.

So, I headed out to Home Depot. Unfortunately, they don’t have that fine a grit for the detail sander or even the palm sander, but they did have sheets of sandpaper in 400 grit. Since I was there anyway, I bought three house plants (in cheap-ass plastic containers) and some clay pots to replant them in for my new plant stand.

I then went to Meijer’s to restock my canned tomatoes. My spaghetti sauce sucked up a lot of stuff, so I bought two each of large cans of whole tomatoes, small cans of diced tomatoes and small cans of tomato sauce. I also got some shredded Cheddar cheese and two aluminum mixing bowls.

The bowls are to try an new technique I saw on Chow Ciao. He perfectly peeled a bunch of garlic cloves by putting them into two same-size aluminum bowls and shaking the hell out of them. I am more of the “smash and peel” kind of cook, but if this works, I’m all over it.

Back home, I unloaded the car and backed it out to the drive. I locked it and then shut the garage door. Then I took the plants I bought and replanted them in the garage.

The “cactus garden” was already in a low clay pot so, other than watering it and putting a clay saucer under it, I let it be. Please note that I don’t see any cacti in it, just succulent plants.

I repotted the aloe vera into a clay pot and that, with another saucer went on the second shelf.

The third was a snake plant. I was already worried that it would grow too tall (My Mom had a huge one) but the cool pot I bought for it was too big for the bottom shelf, anyway. So, I will set that on the floor and get another for the bottom shelf, someday.

Before I started on the clock, I had one more thing to do. I have completely lost track of which key goes to which padlock (shame on me for not labeling them). So, a while back, I bought four Master padlocks (guaranteed by Rustoleum to never rust) with just one key. Today, I took my 100-foot extension cord and Jake’s grinder and cut off the four locks out back (the north-end gate, the south-end gate, the flat bed trailer hitch and the sailboat trailer hitch). I replaced all four with the one-key locks and hung the key in my key-box in the back room.

It was already a bit late for lunch when I came inside, but I made my last Rueben, anyway.

Then I took the clock out in the garage and for the next two hours or so, I sanded it with 150 grit paper. This time I sat on a stool instead of bending over. I blew it off with the air compressor and went back inside. [Sidebar: You always want to blow it off, or use a vacuum cleaner with a brush attachment. That way you are sure you are not just rubbing in the coarser grit leftovers.] I didn’t bother to take a picture for you as you’ve seen the clock in the jig before.

I was bushed, so I laid down and took a long nap. I woke up after dark and was hungry once again. So, I reheated the last of the pork scaloppini and the rest of the cauliflower. Then I went out, shoved the sawhorse back and pulled the car in for the night.

I watched some TV and then dozed off about 11:00 PM. I woke up at 12:30 AM and watched the last of Leno and then Jimmy Fallon. He had Prince on. I’ve never watched him or even paid attention to a Prince song before (although I remember Amy used to love him) but he was excellent. My bad.