Grey

** Tuesday started poorly for me. Pinklady was up early getting ready for an appointment, so she and the dogs were moving around and making noise, which made it really hard to stay asleep. Even after she left, I had a hard time finding a comfortable position to lay in since my back was bothering me. About 0930 I finally gave up and schlupped out of bed. I crawled into my robe and looked out the window to find another nasty grey day. Sat down in front of the computer and thought about all the things I should do. I should get dressed. I should take my stupid pills. I should eat breakfast. I should make some coffee. I should go walk on the treadmill. I didn't do any of it.

I sat there on the computer for over an hour, just clicking my way around the 'net. Just going from one random thing to another, not really interested in any of it. It was just easier to do that than to do all that other stuff. The whole time though, the thought kept going through my head that I really should be doing those other things. Just before 1100, I finally levered myself up out of the chair and got moving. I shuffled down the hall and got into some workout clothes. Went to the kitchen, took my damn pills, started a pot of coffee, and had some left over H'ween candy for breakfast. Shortly thereafter I was downstairs on the treadmill.

And with that effort, I gained enough momentum to make a decent run at the day. Not great, mind you, but not miserable. And even though I'd like think it was purely my own effort that got me moving, it wasn't. Another prime motivator was not wanting Pinklady to come home and find me laying around. I really didn't want to hear 'Are you taking you pills?' or 'Are you using your lamp?' or 'You know you're really acting like you did last year and it took months to get things under control then.' Even though that may not have been the best motivation I could have had, at least it served the function of getting me to do what I needed to do.

But, the rest of it is still there. Call them signs, symptoms, or indicators. Tendencies would be the nicest way you could put it. No matter, it still points to the recurrence of something I really don't want to admit is happening, yet again. Nor do I want to have to deal with it all winter.

** Seems that in my haste to show off for The Goalkeeper, I failed to remember one of the cardinal rules of puzzle crafting: check it, check it, and check it again. Two errors in construction on my part kept the solution from being achieved neatly. After being informed of the problem and locating and correcting my errors, the correct result was quickly obtained. The reaction to said result was politely neutral. Only in my good dreams would it have been enthusiastically implemented. Only in my bad dreams would it have been cause for legal action. Oh, well. For a short while there, I was amused.

** Dog issues? Go figure that the mostly untrained dogs may be trying to figure out the pecking order for themselves. Or maybe not. i have no idea what the problem could be, or if there even is one to start with. All I know is that Pinklady has told me that there have been 2 separate times when Gracie has grabbed Reka by the scruff of the neck and made her yelp. I'm tending to think that Miss Gracie is way too possessive of Pinklady and may be starting to become intolerant of others getting to close to her. Irregardless, I think Gracie is going to need to get a bit more structure into her life.

**Thanks to the early arrival of the MN crew, and the near fanatical insistence that tradition be maintained at all cost, I am already being hounded for my holiday list. Which is something I don't have. That will simply not go over at all with the gift procurement committee.

** It is taking me damn near forever to resharpen my full size straight chisels. Mostly because I did such a horrid job of it when I was doing it freehand. Now, with the sharpening jig I made, I may still be sharpening them to the wrong angle (somewhere around 25 degrees), but at least they're consistent and straight.
The last carving I did (see the top slideshow below) came out really nice, even after having to refinish the whole thing (due to my own stupidity, grumble grumble). In fact, I do believe that I will be keeping it to add to the collection. Alas, Mr Dawson will be left without for a while longer.