Ooooh Weldy!

Alright a quick note. This weekend the weather finally gave way to decent and I got out into the garage and the yard. Tonia was, as always, working in the bathroom trying to get the 30+ year old shower plumbing apart. Jordan and I were in the yard spreading some grass patch and raking up old dead grass. I have to admit that I truly hate yard work. I love trees and grass, and I don't mind mowing, but I hate the bull a guy has to do to try and keep the grass green. Whenever someone decided what a lawn should be they should have picked crab grass or dandelions. Those grow with no problem.

Anyway, I decided on Sunday to break out the welder I received from my wonderful folks for Christmas. It is a very compact and handy unit that is pretty much dummy proof. It's only 110v so I can plug it in wherever and weld away.

That's the little Hobart on the left. Tonia decided she wanted a new piece of modern art for our guest bathroom so she commissioned me to make a small bowl shaped candle-holder out of washers. Note the shoes, Heathrow, even awesome for welding as well as walking. Still rockin' the Airwalks!

I, of course, felt that there was a slightly better use for the item. Am I wrong? I don't think so. After the welding was done Tonia gave it a quick aged spray paint job and here is the final product.

It's not perfect, but it turned out pretty neat. Because of my first time success with welding I think my next job will be the Litchuania line of bike frames. I'm sure I could get Lemond to put his name on them. Here's what I'm thinking...

Ooohhh Cha!! I'm on it!

A long blog break.

It's been a fair stretch since my last blog and for that I apologize. I'd say it was because we were busy, but that would be a lie. In typical North Dakota fashion the weather has been a roller-coaster. The weather has swung from 60 degrees down to twenty. The snow melted then fell again in earnest. Then it melted again and snowed again. It has been very frustrating. Now the temps are good, the snow is melted, but the North Dakota wind has come on full force. I think it was easily blowing at 25 mph two days ago. Today was beautiful and I was able to give the 1600 a little stretch. Hey Dave, how about a road ride this weekend? Let me know.

Because of the weather we have tried drastic measures to keep Mario's feet clean to avoid the mud in the yard.

They were a bit labor intensive to get on him, but they really seemed to work out. All-in-all it's just easier to wipe the dogs feet rather then making him deal with the indignity of wearing golf club covers on his feet. They will be returned to Fleet Farm.

Tonia and I just passed out 6 year anniversary and since we're planning a trip to Ireland this summer we just had a quiet evening eating some steaks and watching a movie.

Mario however, felt he needed to enjoy the steak as well. So while Tonia was out potting some new vines for the pergola and I was getting the grill fired up, Mario decided to have a little taste. In a matter of minutes, both New York strip steaks were gone into the mighty gullet of the hound. For some reason he snoozed comfortably the rest of the night. We thought he only liked pizza; guess we'll know for next time. This is him digesting and looking sorry, sort of.

On the home improvement front not a lot has happened. We've done a little work on the bathroom, but not much. Tonia was busy helping Kelli with her Bid for the Mrs. North Dakota pageant and celebrating her month long birthday.

I spent a week in Sheridan, WY. Not a lot to report about that week. They do have a Starbucks, but I ended up working long hours and did not get as much time writing as I would have liked.

On the writing front my concerns about running out of ideas seemed to be all for naught. Since finishing my first Novel I have written three short stories and the forth one I started is now over 20,000 words and is at least a novella if not yet another novel. We'll see.

I gave the novel some good resting time and decided to start editing, but I hate editing so it is very slow going. I think I am about 30 pages in. I will say right now, that editing sucks. I must soldier on.

That's about it for now. I'll post some pics of the bathroom next time around.