Brimfield Antique Market

The Brimfield Antique Market is always an adventure. This year I shot a bit with the holgas...always something bizarre to stop and stare at, it's great. As you can probably tell, I was mesmerized by the mannequins at one particular booth. Every angle was different...they were...looking at you. I managed to squeak by on less than $20 that day, luckily. I have a thing for pyrex bowls...and collect every size, every color, every set. Well, ok, I do temper my urges with reality, but I can spot the darn things a mile away. Those and salt boxes. Verra pricey items, salt boxes.

Dogs

Can I just say, for the record, how absolutely enamored I am of my Holgas? I love them! Shooting, processing, scanning, editing, and printing all get me going...in a good way. I processed 11 rolls of film today between shoots for school. I was so excited to finally have 2 hours to do this...and of course, then I come straight home to scan. Scanning is a tedious job, but a necessary element to my workflow...despite the fact that I am using film, I do digitize everything for posting, etc. I always feel a twinge of guilt when I scan personal projects, knowing full well I have wedding work to finish. I try very, very hard to balance the two. But the holga images...they just make my soul soar. One day I am going to have a kick ass show and make some great books from these images.

The front porch

The porch is a disaster. There are 5 layers of paint, the wainscoating is kinda messed up, the trim is rotted, and the shingles on the outside are really warped. I spent several hours stripping what I could of the multiple paint layers, but the whole time I am doing this all I can think is "should I just re-do part of the porch?" I have limited funds available...I think the most I might do is buy new trim pieces, nail the shingles on better, and paint. I also did a lead paint test today, which of course was positive. I had been getting lazy and NOT wearing my mask every time I worked. I needed that positive result to kick me back into wearing the mask. I KNOW BETTER. I have already gotten lead poisoning...several years ago, on the first paint stripping project I did. My doctor was pretty casual about my request, gave me the forms to go to the lab, and then called me as soon as the results came in. "You're doing WHAT kind of project?" he asked.

I have 4 test patches painted on now...this is really hard to do.

Landscaping progress

I finished scraping and sanding one side...bar the top strip that I will deal with separately. Gotta figure out how to best tackle the underside of the eaves...and I am considering just doing the whole house myself. I got a few painting quotes. Sigh. I know it will take me all summer (and it will take a painter 2 weeks) but I think I will go for it. I have no money unless I get a bank loan. Eh. Not an idea that makes me overly happy, that.

Ordered 100 pachysandra plants online, they arrived yesterday, so today I put them all in. I can only assume that they will take, and in a few years the area below the tree will be filled in nicely.

Overview of the front hill garden area. It's shaping up pretty well, considering this was the LAST thing I really cared about for the last 2 years.

Dog Park April 28

Tired

I have just spent 4 hours scraping and sanding. I was up last night until 3:30 am. I don't like it when my brain can't shut down and let...me...sleeeeep. However, my therapy of choice is still the house project, that should do just fine. I am tired, though. I feel like I shouldn't stop working, because the weather is good and it's not dark yet. I sound like my ex-husband when I say that...he would work in the fields until dark and I was always alone. Ah, well, at least there's no one waiting for ME to come in from the out of doors...

Dog park April 14