John and Boat Building

Back in the days before the comic strip, John would spend his spare time making ship models. When we got married he was about 20% done with a Tea Clipper he had started from scratch - no kit, no plans. She took over 15 years to complete. (not surprising, considering we started a family and John began his pursuit of syndication)

She currently resides in our living room inside an enormous (6 feet high, almost 7 feet long) oak and plexiglass case designed and built by John and my stepfather in law, Bob.

Below are some close ups - everything is hand carved or made out of things like paper clips (the winch) and the copper bottom is covered in lord knows how many tiny pieces of copper foiling tape, cut to scale and applied individually.

To read more about John's boat building exploits, go to his Cartoonist Studio page here and click on his blog. (Unfortunately I can't link directly to the blog page for some reason.)

Backyard Superheroes

It's been pointed out to me, by no less than the renowned comics afficianado and podcaster extraordinaire Tom Racine, that I have been slacking off on my blog posts. Here goes - this one's for you Tom :-)

So it's project season again and first up on the roster was the garage roof. 

Last year the large and ancient Silver Maple behind our garage decided to fling a good portion of itself at our garage. Because the roof was beginning to rot anyway, this resulted in several good sized and unfortunately placed holes. Upon inspection, it became clear that the entire roof was going to have to be torn off and redone. As John is handy (and we are also cheap) the decision was made to do this ourselves. "I'll be able to get it all done in one long weekend" is a phrase I seem to recall hearing.

Before you think me too critical of his over optimistic timeline, you have to know this is not our first roofing rodeo. In 1989 our first house needed a complete tear-off and rebuild. John, his brother, and one other friend with roofing experience did the whole East face themselves (including a dormer) and John wound up doing the entire West face himself. It took an amazingly long time, turned my then youthful (read childless) husband into something vaguely resembling a coal miner and, I believe, prompted the phrase "Never again!!".

Ten years later, when we put that house on the market, we were told by the inspector that we would have to replace the garage roof in order to sell the house. Again, a total tear-off. As the profit margin on said home sale was going to be pretty thin, John reluctantly opted to do it himself.

"Never again!!"

Roof number three was our current house. Mindful of the perils of the steepness of this current roof, as well as it's extreme height and proximity to a thoroughly unforgiving concrete driveway, the decision was made to - gasp - Hire Someone.

Completely worth the money. I didn't have to worry about him breaking his neck and they had the whole thing done in two days. Plus they have this amazing conveyer belt to take the shingle bundles up instead of several bone crunching trips up the wobbly ladder with 40-60 pounds of shingles on ones back.

Roof number four almost doesn't count as it was our screened porch and is entirely made of those translucent corrugated fiberglass panels. Those things are nasty to cut, though.

So this was roof number five and by this time we should know very well how long such things take ;-)

Phase one - the South side - wound up taking 2 full weeks and one gi-normous dumpster and was completed last fall. Then the weather turned and we had to wait until April for phase two. To be fair, the North side did only take one long weekend, beginning Good Friday and finished Easter Sunday. It also took another gi-normous dumpster

This roof was different, though. Different in a good way because we had the help of our strapping teenage son to take some of the load off. Different in a bad way because our bodies are a little less shock absorbing these days and our tempers a little bit closer to the surface.

Which is why, over the course of the project - and after several bashed thumbs, blown knees, and dropped hammers, I have taken to calling my two backyard superheroes Dammit Man and Dangit Boy.

Long may they protect us from rotten roofs everywhere :-)

Ta Daah! Isn't is beautiful?!

John's Art

John has posted some of his non-Edison art over on the lab notes. I'm hoping he'll continue posting these kinds of things and also find time to get back to creating more non-comic art. He has such a gift. If you have comments on his art, please leave them here as the lab notes have no comment function.

I Hate Halloween

I hate Halloween. Well, maybe hate is too strong a word. But it's definitely not my favorite holiday. 

As a kid, it ranked right up there with my favorites. Probably only third behind Christmas and Easter. With those two, Halloween completed the trifecta of candy holidays. As in "You, the child, will receive copious amounts of sugary treats on these three days of the year. The other 362 it's back to unsweetened cereals and whole grain bread." (My mother was a health nut - never any sign of a Hostess Twinkie or any other Hostess product within 20 yards of our house. Maybe this is one reason Orville gets to eat so many of them.)

When did this change? When did my aversion to Halloween begin? I'll tell you. 

1995

I can tell you exactly because that was the year our first child turned four and our second child turned one.

That was the year I met the other moms. 

The ones who sew. 

The ones who would never be caught dead buying their kid a Halloween costume. Who equated parental love with a willingness to make oneself nuts making a perfect homemade Trick or Treating outfit extraordinaire. 

Now I am creative and artistic and can paint and crochet and knit with the best of them. I can even sew. Sort of. Basically I sew rectangles. I can make pillows and tote bags and valances and can even sort of slipcover cushions (I didn't photograph the back of these - you would see how much of their perfect fit is owed to the glories of duct tape). But sewing things that actually have to fit on curves and around ankles - well, you can't duct tape the kid into the Halloween costume. I think they call DCFS on you.

Not only did this group of new friends make perfect costumes for their kids, they also made them for themselves. Every year for about ten years we were part of a group that had a big Halloween party where everyone had to wear a costume. And this brings me to the other reason I now hate Halloween. 

I hate dressing up in costumes of any kind. Hate it, hate it, hate it.

I gave it a good shot the first year we went to the party - John and I made everyone bird costumes. (Though coloring bedsheets with spray paint - not a good idea. Massive toxic fumes. Fortunately only on our costumes - the kids were in non toxic yellow jammies or something). 

I think I even came up with something pretty good the following year. But then something snapped. Then the party became, for me, a sort of game where I would see how little I could do to dress up. 

Non-costumes I can recall: 

The Artist - I threw on a grubby "painter's" shirt and carried around a palette and paint brush.

The Farmer's Wife - the same jeans and shirt and shoes from the previous year - I ditched the painter's accessories and put my hair in braids.

The Poet - I dressed all in black,  put on dark, dark lipstick, and wrote up about 20 fortune cookie-esque poems to be handed out upon request.

The Princess - I put on one of my old Bridesmaid dresses.

The Harpist - really a cop out - I just wore what I usually wear to a gig. 

and my personal favorite:

The Failure of The Women's Movement - this costume also included my then five year old daughter. She went as a princess and I put my hair in a bun, found one of my mom's old June Cleaver type dresses from the 50's, and a double strand of fake pearls. I got this idea only days earlier when attending a Halloween/Birthday party for one of my daughter's classmates. I kid you not - every girl at the party was a fairy or a princess and every boy was The Hulk or Spiderman. How far we've come :-)

John, on the other hand, excels at making costumes. Except for the year he went as a painting (when I was the painter - get it?) he usually puts a lot of time and talent into costuming.  I especially remember the year son number two wanted to be a character from Sonic the Hedgehog. John made this out of a bicycle helmet. It took days.

And here is the infamous R2D2 costume. You can read all about the genesis of this over on John's recent lab notes.

So, in closing, I'll wish you all a Happy Halloween. I'll happily buy $40 worth of candy and pass it out to the neighborhood children, and you too, if you stop by. 

Just don't ask me to dress up.

Great Summer Movie and Another of John's Talents

I get to brag about my talented husband yet again and also plug a movie. Last night some girlfriends and I went to see Julie and Julia, the movie about Julie Powell and Julia Child. What a great film! Several reviews and programs I have encountered have made the point that they though there was too much "Julie" and not enough "Julia". I have to disagree. While I love Meryl Streep as much as the next person, and her presentation of Julia Child was superb, I was equally interested in the Julie Powell story and thought Amy Adams was terrific. As I understand it the film was not meant to be a bio-pic of Julia Child as much as a depiction of Julie Powell's idea of Julia Child and what that version of J.C. meant to her life. As such, the J.C. bits were largely there to illustrate the aspects of her life that were accessible to Julie. GO SEE IT!

So now the bragging. We actually own Julia Child's wonderful "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" and, while I make crepes and boef bourguignon from it, John is really the one who does the majority of the gourmet cooking around here. I think probably his favorite J.C. recipe is the French Onion Soup. He makes it a lot. Real food is very important to us and we have worked very hard to have regular family dinner at least 5 nights out of 7. John is the driving force behind this and, subsequently does a lot more of the cooking than I do. Although, I have noticed that he cooks a lot more when he has several graphics jobs going on - I suspect  it's his way of playing hooky from work :-) 

In the water

Well, it took a lot of work and there's still plenty of work for next year but, after nearly two years in drydock, the boat is back in the water. Now John can sit back and enjoy some free time. Ha - I almost believed that :-)

One of my favorite things about this boat is that it is 40 years old - think of it as restoring a 69 classic car. Anyway here are some pics of the finished product.

The cockpit with some of the new and/or restored wood.

Most of the wood used to look like this (this is on our neighbor's boat)

The new compass - we can navigate again! Also, more restored wood.

Restored and repainted hatch cover.

More restored woodwork in the cabin along with the new cushion covers.

Cabin interior with new cushion covers - my grandmother's featherweight sewing machine really came through.

Under sail.

Not too windy a day, but I had to put my lifejacket back on after this shot-don't mess with the coast guard on the Great Lakes :-)

Some of the "teeny" boats we share the marina with. Not enough papers for that yet :-)

When John's Not Working Part Two

Again, John is practically always working. But he does have some other passions and talents besides the strip. John grew up working part time in his dad's flooring business and is an extremely handy guy. He designed and built the amazing treehouse pictured above when our boys were small - (not so great about cost projections though, the project took about 30 extra unforseen trips to the lumberyard/hardware store and cost about 5 times what he though it would) and, just before the launch he completely redesigned and rebuilt our screened porch. 

Another passion is gardening. Our backyard is quite small but John has managed to squeeze in an herb/kitchen garden (in the approximately 8 square feet of full sun we get daily - many, many neighboring trees) and a substantial flower garden. These plants bring all of us such great joy and have also created an inspiring writing space for John on the porch. My contributions generally consist of picking out a few new perennial additions every year and some thoughts on placement. This is for the best as I am known in the family as "she who kills all plants". This would be largely because I never remember to water anything and am then surprised as everything dies. 

So thank you for all the lovely flowers John!

Peonies, strawberries, evening primrose, the herb garden, and some of the rebuilt porch . This little corner had dead grass and a small bush of some sort (also mostly dead) when we bought the house. The 90 year old neighbor lady (who had lived on the block all her life) informed us "nothing ever grows there". John built some terrific terraced boxes and the rest is history!

Black Rasberries ( these have become jam since this was taken)

This year we have enough peaches coming on that we just might get to eat a couple. So far, the squirrels have managed to steal them all every year. This is the Peach tree's final chance or else it's getting replaced next year.

Our daughter's cherry tree - we got just enough for a pie. Delicious!

The evening primrose in bloom.

Peonies are my favorite! 

This is our first year for hanging Nasturtiums. I think we'll do this again next year - so much nicer than Petunia's and less deadheading.

This is also our first stab at a Hibiscus. We'll se if we can keep it alive over the winter. (Doubtful)

 Our Mock Orange - the most heavenly aroma comes from this.

Our daughter's little plot is inside the box. Since this picture was taken her watermelon has taken over most of the box and has designs on the rest of the yard. Unfortunately, this has been an absolutely dismal year for tomatoes. The pathetic little plants you see behind the box are only slightly bigger now than when this was taken. In years past we have had so many tomatoes we have spent a couple days canning the extras, not to mention eating tons of them. We've even had cherry tomato plants that have grown 7 feet up into the overhanging cedars.   Not this year :-)

When John's Not Working

What am I saying? He's always working :-) Between his graphic design business and the strip, there isn't a lot of free time. However, John occasionally squeezes other projects and activities in. One of these is our 1968 Bahama Islander sailboat - or, as friends like to say, "that hole in the water we throw money into".  Because of its age, coupled with our hard Wisconsin winters, it often needs a lot of work. 13 years ago John basically stripped and refinished everything and now, this summer, it is time to do all that again. 

All the woodwork has been taken off and refinished in our garage - I'll post pics when I get them. The deck has been completely stripped, sanded and refinished with new fiberglass. (These pics are pre-fiberglass)

All the railings, the mast etc. are also getting a facelift and are being checked for stability and safety. It's also time for a new compass - useful for not getting lost on an enormous freezing lake!

The interior cushions are original and are in pretty bad shape - I made covers for them 13 years ago but it's time to do that again as well.

Before they can be recovered, some of them need a little help.

Gotta love Gorilla Tape!!

New covers - I have these three done so far - I should be able to finish the rest by next week.

I'll post more pics when it's finished. It's a lot of work but hopefully all the repairs and restoration will last another 13 years!