Weekend Coffee Share 4.23.17

Posted on April 23, 2017 by Maggie C

If we were having coffee…

I’d offer you decaf tea today instead. It’s a bit late in the day for me to have caffeine, and herbal tea sounds comforting on this dreary, cold Sunday. My mood is rather dreary to match the weather, so I may not be the best of company today.

Friday was gorgeous once the morning clouds burned off. I got some yard work done; pulled errant weeds and mowed my lawn. I mowed down all my wonderful dandelions, but I veered around the volunteer clumps of grape hyacinths that popped up throughout the yard. It looks kind of like a bad haircut with purple highlights. But it’s my bad haircut and I’m liking it that way.

My kitchen remodel has slowed markedly as I struggle with getting the concrete counter tops to look at least a bit smoother than my front lawn. I had hoped to be nearly done with the kitchen project by the end of this month, but there’s tons left to do. I’ve still got seven days ‘til May, so maybe I’ll really buckle down this week and see how much I can accomplish. Me and Trump.

I’ve also been dealing with a water leak in the hatchback of my car. After three auto body shop visits and a few hundred dollars expended, it’s no better than when I first discovered the impromptu lake in the wheel well where the spare tire is stored. I guess I’ll be cleaning out the garage so I can fit the car back in.

The garage was clean until the kitchen remodel began spilling over. Ripped up flooring, ripped out counter tops, cardboard boxes, paint cans and supplies, cement and concrete mix, old warped shelving… all accumulated in the garage.

Maybe cleaning out the garage is more important right now than charging ahead with the kitchen stuff. I can reap all the psychological benefits of cleaning: a greater sense of control through organizing, the buoyancy brought on by purging oneself of garbage and extraneous stuff, the satisfaction of immediate and tangible results. And a drier car.

Wow. I’m feeling better just thinking about it. Or maybe it was the tea. Or the chance to warm up in front of the space heater. Or the crackers. Help yourself to some, by the way, if you haven’t already. Where are my manners?

Here’s hoping for a productive week.

#WeekendCoffeeShare is generously hosted by Emily at NerdintheBrain.com.

pancakes

Posted on April 19, 2017 by Maggie C

plate of plain pancakes
pour maple syrup on top
plain turns to pleasure

P is for pancake.

#AtoZChallenge: 26 posts in April, topics to proceed alphabetically. Theme optional.

My theme: a three-line poem each day (5-7-5, haiku form) with the first letter of each line the same as the letter of the day.

Weekend Coffee Share 3/25/17

Posted on March 25, 2017 by Maggie C

If we were having coffee… well, we wouldn’t be able to make it to the kitchen right now, but I’d invite you around back. I’ve got the hose set up, so I can offer you water. I could wash out that cute little flower pot for a mug.

No? Okay, well come around back anyway, and I’ll show you what I’ve been up to.
Remember that little concrete countertop I poured a couple of weeks ago? Well, I worked on grinding and finishing it this week. And now it’s going to be a very shiny stepping stone for the yard somewhere.

Apparently there’s a kind of sweet spot with concrete finishing, right when it gets that nice smooth sheen, and before it begins getting really shiny and starts revealing even more pits than what one has already sanded out. I was going for a shiny look, and managed to polish my way right past that smooth sweet spot.

With proper training, experience and equipment, I suppose there are subtler nuances between finishing stages, but I lack all of the above. Hey, it was fun, though, and I haven’t given up!

Today, I gave it another go ‘round with a pour-in-place top. Same size as the first one, but this time instead of doing all the dirty work in the garage and then bringing it into the house to install, I built the mold right onto the counter surface and poured the concrete directly into its final resting place, doing all the dirty work in the kitchen.

Hence the inaccessibility. It’s a small space to begin with, but once you’ve pulled both the fridge and the stove away from the walls, and have slopped impromptu concrete speed bumps all over the floor, well… I guess I’ll be going out for my morning coffees this coming week.

I’ll likely remove the forms on Wednesday, and assuming it’s functional, I’ll begin grinding and polishing. This time I’m going for that smooth sheen. Let’s hope I get it right. A girl can only use so many stepping stones.

Have a great week! Maybe I’ll see you at the coffee shop.

P.S. — If you notice that Chules looks a little straggly, it’s because he chose to take on the water hose while I was rinsing off my tools in the back yard. Despite what he tries to claim, I did NOT start a water fight! (I did win it, though. 😉 )

#WeekendCoffeeShare is hosted by Emily at NerdintheBrain.com. Head on over to see what others are sharing this weekend. They probably won’t make you drink from the hose.

The kinda big Reveal

Posted on March 20, 2017 by Maggie C

Last year I took part in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge using a secondary blog that I was maintaining at the time. The challenge, as described on the A to Z site, is,

“Can you post every day except Sundays during [the] month [of April]? And to up the bar, can you blog thematically from A to Z?”

In other words, on April 1st, the topic for a post would be something beginning with the letter A, and so on ‘til the end of the month when you reach Z. Some bloggers use themes to tie their posts for the month together. I didn’t do that last year, since I only learned of the challenge on April 1st, and was scrambling to come up with the requisite posts, let alone something thematic. But this year…

I decided that if I’m going to barrage readers with daily posts, I’ll keep them short and sweet – well, short anyway. So my “theme” is to write a 5-7-5 poem each day (a poem in the form of three lines with corresponding syllables per line of 5, 7 and 5). Some would call it haiku, and haiku purists would be aghast if you called it haiku. So I’ll just leave it at 5-7-5.

And in keeping with the alphabetical theme, each day’s poem will be on a topic beginning with the assigned letter, AND — just to make it even more challenging — each line of the poem will also begin with the letter of the day.

Confused? Yeah, me too. But with April just around the corner, it will all become clear. I hope.

Bottom line: One month (April), short posts, alphabetical, haiku-ish.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I must
attempt
being
competently
diligent
effecting
future
gaity
here
in
jovial
keeping
like
many
notable
other
posts
quite
recently
such
that
understandably
visitors
won’t
eXit
yawning
Zzzzzzzzzz’s

#Weekend Coffee Share 3/19/17

Posted on March 19, 2017 by Maggie C

If we were having coffee, you might notice that the path into my house is ever-so-slightly clearer. As the kitchen makeover progresses, some of the overflow materials, tools, odds and odders are thinning out a bit. Just a bit, though.

Pardon me while I squeeze past the stove that’s been pulled out of place and now sits in the middle of the kitchen, find you a clean coffee mug and try to remember which space of countertop was clear enough to hold the coffee maker this morning.

I poured one of the concrete countertops – just a little one; 24” x 15.5” – and set it in place yesterday to see how I like it. It seems rather thick at two inches, especially for such a small top, but I’ll leave it there for a while to see if I warm up to it. If nothing else, it will make for a good practice piece as I try to get the hang of filling the air holes, polishing and finishing the concrete.

Painting, more painting, resizing cupboard doors to fit around the new range top vent, ripping up old flooring, pulling staples… it’s slow going for me, but mostly because I’m in no hurry. I spend a lot of time just standing in the middle of the kitchen, surveying my “progress,” and alternating between a sense of pride and a sense of panic as the thought, “What was I thinking when I decided to take this on?” runs through my mind.

It makes my eskie Chules anxious to see me just standing there. He thinks if I’m in the kitchen I should be fetching him a snack, and if I’m not going to feed him I should stop staring at the walls and go play with him. Or at the very least, sit and watch him as he naps.

The sun’s actually out today, a rarity that I should probably take advantage of. I’ll let Chules take me for a walk and then consider doing some yard work.

Thanks for stopping by. I apologize if I bored you with my kitchen update. As the weather moderates I can begin regaling you with stories of my landscaping projects (something about which I am equally clueless as I am with the DIY kitchen project).

I hope you have a great week!

#WeekendCoffeeShare is graciously hosted by Emily at NerdintheBrain.com.

Weekend Coffee Share 3.4.17

Posted on March 4, 2017 by Maggie C

If we were having coffee, I would invite you in and advise you — as usual — to mind the obstacle course of clutter on our way to the couch. The clutter has rearranged a bit. The long cardboard box holding my new bifold door is gone from where it has lain on the floor in front of the living room window for longer than I care to admit, and the door is now bifolding where I installed it in the kitchen closet doorway.

The two large bags of Goodwill donations that sat on the flat box of wood veneer at the front door entrance have finally been duly donated. The box of veneer panels is still there, but is thinning as the veneer gets cut to size and used to line the newly painted kitchen cabinets.

The saw horse bench in the dining room has been dismantled, mostly because I needed to use the “bench” part to make new shelving for the aforementioned kitchen closet with the aforementioned new bifold door.

The kitchen linoleum sports even more paint splatters, although there is less linoleum to splatter as I have begun ripping it out in anticipation of new flooring.

As you may have guessed by now, the kitchen remodel is still in progress, albeit a very slow progression. The wheels of remodeling turn slowly in my house. But that’s okay. If I weren’t puttering around with the kitchen, I would likely be sitting around getting bummed by the dreary gray skies and rain that have comprised this winter. I am soooo ready for spring.

I’m also eager for warmer weather so I can attempt the concrete counter top construction. Once poured into the melamine mold I built, the concrete will have to hang out in the (unheated) garage for a week or so to set and cure before I move it into the kitchen. I have no clue as to what I am doing with this, so the whole process will be yet another adventure in my DIY home impairment saga.

My dog Chules doesn’t mind the weather, but he is soooo ready for the kitchen remodel to be over. He doesn’t like the noise of the circular saw and the shop vac, although I think he secretly loves brushing up against the fresh paint and coming away with colorful stripes to adorn his fur.

The coffee has run out, so I guess it’s time to get on with the day. On today’s agenda: moving the cabinet doors into the glass studio and setting up space so I can begin painting them. Chules will be so disappointed that the doors are going to be white. No chance for stripes on his white fur.

Thanks for stopping by. If you have any pointers on making concrete countertops, feel free to comment. Maybe sharing ideas will help cement our friendship. (See what I did there?)

Have a great week!

#WeekendCoffeeShare is graciously hosted by Emily at NerdintheBrain.com.

Body Dump

Posted on January 27, 2017 by Maggie C

After multiple seasons of chipping my lawnmower blade on a chunk of concrete protruding from the grass at the very edge of my property, I decided one day to dig the offending obstruction out of the ground.

I grabbed a shovel and set to it. The more I dug, however, the more I found. Ultimately, I discovered I had come upon the burial site of a heavy concrete birdbath — pedestal and all – chunked into several pieces. Kind of like a victim in a creepy ax murder movie, only with cement dust instead of blood. More than I had bargained for, at any rate.

I loaded the pieces into my wheelbarrow and dumped them next to my driveway until I could figure out a way to get rid of the body – er, I mean birdbath. After a few months of staring at the rubble, I came up with a plan. I would hide the body in plain sight!

I had dug up a circular section of turf in the middle of my yard several months previously, admittedly with no clue as to how I was going to incorporate it into my landscape theme (or lack thereof). Keep the neighbors guessing, I always say.

So here I had this garden-like circular space and these rock-like concrete chunks. What better way to kill two birds with one birdbath, than to combine the garden and the rocks to build a rock garden!

Of course, I don’t really know how to make a rock garden, but I lined the circle area with the concrete chunks, and then planted a shrub in the middle for good measure. Maybe shrubs don’t belong in rock gardens, and maybe the rock garden will morph into something else over time. Apparently it’s not just the neighbors whom I confound with my actions; I have no clue either as to what I’m doing.

I think I’ve pulled off disguising the birdbath corpse, though. At least there haven’t been any robins or sparrows in long black overcoats and fedora hats pulled low over their eyes knocking at my door.

I wonder what else I will uncover as I continue my random landscape projects. I’m thinking of tearing down the old shed behind my house… what do you suppose lies hidden beneath that?

The Daily Post weekly photo challenge: Repurpose

Alternative Facts

Image

Change is Afoot; Change is Ahead

Posted on January 6, 2017 by Maggie C

Two years ago I began a blog about my favorite pastime, stained glass. In my first post, I indicated that the blog, Glass Manifestations, would be about:

“glass (sort of) because working with glass is how I do a lot of my processing (thoughts, feelings, ideas, inspirations…), and hence a lot of my thoughts, feelings and ideas are made manifest in my art. But… also about insight and growth, in the hope that what I manifest tomorrow, or next week or next year – in life as well as in glass – will continue to improve. In quality, in meaningfulness, and in pure, simple pleasure.”

A month into the blog, I signed up for a WordPress Blogging U course on writing poetry. With the very first assignment, I realized that my poetry attempts might not fit into my Glass blog theme of insight and growth and meaningfulness.

Nope. That first poem was about leaky water faucets and dental floss. I decided I needed a different venue where I could express those random, ridiculous and totally irrelevant thoughts that obviously didn’t get the “meaningfulness” memo. Hence, What Rhymes with Stanza came into being.

In the two years since, my Stanza blog has grown and expanded beyond poetry to where now I express my random, silly and possibly meaningful thoughts through photography, prose, embellished conversations amongst animals, and sometimes art.

The Glass blog, in the meantime, just wasn’t as fun a place to hang out for me. And so the blog languished in neglect.

With the new year, I’ve done a bit of reassessing about my blogs and have decided to combine the two, moving some of the material from the withering glass blog over to this site. Hopefully that will occur seamlessly and behind the scene, so long as I don’t confuse the export/import process with the reblog function. (If you see fifty new posts from me in a single day, you’ll know I failed.)

This blog-meld won’t change the Stanza site to any significant degree. You’ll likely see more posts about stained glass and art, and I’ve added a gallery of my glass work for those of you who care to look. Other than that, you can expect my usual deep and evocative take on what chickens discuss when no one else is around, fascinating tips on how not to handle home improvement projects, copious photos of my pets, and maybe even a poem or two.

I’m looking forward to a fun, random, insightful, meaningful year! I hope you stick around to share it with me.

Look What I Found!

Posted on December 28, 2016 by Maggie C

This week’s Discover Challenge at The Daily Post asks us to look back at our blog posts for this past year and find a way to build on or synthesize our best work of 2016.

My best work? Well, having only managed a single post for most of the months this year, the “best” of it becomes a rather short list. Nonetheless, I’ve taken on the challenge of using lines from previous posts to create a “found poem.” Here it is:

Glass Scraps

Things aren’t always what they seem.
You can’t sleep on glass, you know.
Does it matter what smashed it?
I really don’t know how it feels to sleep in a ditch,
having never done so. That I recall.

Chewing on lead… bad idea.
What? You think?
Tell that to your Scrabble companions!

Stuff seems to seek us out at every port,
clinging to us like barnacles on a boat.
Take hostas for example. You know,
those green leafy plants that don’t look like ferns.
They do have a certain je ne sais quoi about them, no?
Or maybe a coagulation of gunked up motor oil
stuck to the floor of a mechanic’s garage.
You know how that is, right?

I never goosed anything, quantum or otherwise.
Since I’m too impatient to do all of that,
that session was cut short once the rock shrapnel
began pummeling the inside lining of my kiln.
Okay, I made that last part up.
This is starting to sound like that twine theory stuff.
Much better than the exploding rock episode.

So what is the significance of all of this?
If you can’t stand the heat,
don’t touch the tip of the soldering iron.
But where’s the fun in that?

If Dart has instilled in you a crippling fear of Tiffany lamp shades,
and since that seemed boring as all get out –
well… his work here is done.

The Daily Post’s Discover Challenge: Retrospective

What Rhymes with Stanza?

Words at rest, words at play

Category Archives: creativity