March is getting close!

This last week has been rather intense.

My wife and I were married the day after Valentine's, in 2008. The Esty admins had read a forum post I wrote, and asked if I would mind them using it in Etsy's blog, The Storque. It turned into a nice gift for both of us for our first anniversary. It was very nice of Etsy to include us in their blog.

Jess and I had a wonderful weekend. A great first anniversary, with an awesome money clip bought off Etsy, from the wonderful artists at Unearthed.

Unfortunately, that same week my car decided to give out on me. Repairs would have cost much more than the car was worth. I hate shopping for new autos, and it took about a week to finish. I am very pleased with the results.

The guy I bought it from was very good guy. A boring but nice story took place that happily ended with me driving a great truck for almost half of what I'd planned on spending. I think both of us ended up happy at the end of the exchange, and he also gave me a load of wood for our fire place.

Where did january go?

I don't know how january got away from me. It was a busy month, every day feeling packed. In a good way tho. Some fun project every single day!

The rings are not moving quite as quickly as I'd hoped, so I've been laying off of those while cranking out pipes as quickly as I can. The new tools I got around christmas time have really made a huge difference in how long each pipe takes.

The drill press made getting the holes lined up a quick chore, when before it was a nerve-wracking project for each pipe. The band saw saves me so much time away from the sander. Plus many of the trimmings are useful. Especially nice is being able to effortlessly cut off a chunk to make the bead for the drawstrings on the pouches I make.

I don't think I'll go back over the last month. Today was a good day because of a big reorganizing of the woodshop/spare bedroom.

At my wife's prompting I finally took the bed out of the room. I needed the space because my wonderful father helped me build a work bench out of his scrap piles of various woods. It is awesome having the bar free to sit at again. Until today it was covered in large tools and mountains of red dust.

The table we built is pretty basic, but it is firm, with plenty of space for what I need. The room seems huge now. Better lighting, more walking and sitting space. That room is the only place inside that we allow smoking, so we tend to end up entertaining in there. I will feel much better about having people in there now. Another perk of the new setup is that cleaning will be much easier. Less visible places for dust that are hard to reach.

This first pic is looking into the room from just inside the door. Pictures like these always make a space look tiny. Trust me, there is so much more room for moving around now:



This is the table, all loaded up:



And just because I really like this pipe, here's one of my two favorites made in the last month: