What's down in G-town

G-town is Greenville, by the way.

I've been meaning to post something for the last couple days with an update, but just hadn't done it. Jana's post spurred me into action. So here's the scoop.

I've recently finished making a bead loom for Heather. It's pretty exciting, especially if it works well. She saw these looms and really wanted one, because you can do big projects on them easily. But as you can see, they're a bit pricey. So we set about designing one ourselves. We borrowed from their loom design as much as possible, because they already know how to make looms. It turned out pretty easy to do, and only cost about $15.

Here's a picture of me hard at work. (Click on the pictures to see slightly bigger ones.)



It took about 4 hours to get all the parts cut to specs, but that's because the only power tool I own is a Dremel. It would be much faster with a table saw and a drill press, probably only 15-20 minutes. But you can really use that tool in some clever ways if it's all you've got. Here are a couple pictures of the final product.





She hasn't actually used it yet, so we'll see how well it works. I'm guessing we'll be making some refinements.

Heather has been working on beading projects, like usual. Here are a couple pictures of her latest. She did the bead-embroidery work on the turtle's shell. She named him Lawrence, telling me that it seemed to fit somehow. Then I reminded her of the big stuffed Lawrence, and she laughed and said that must be why it seemed familiar.





Speaking of beading, that's what Heather will be doing all weekend. She's part of a beading group that gets together every few months for a "bead retreat." She's really been looking forward to it, because she gets to relax for three days doing her favorite hobby with like-minded people. She only got to stay for one day at the last one due to other things popping up, so this time she'll get to enjoy the entire weekend. She's even teaching a couple of classes about different techniques! She's taking the newly finished bead loom to show off, and maybe interest some of the ladies enough to order them from us.

Next weekend, we'll be visiting Joe and Michele for one of the famous whirlwind weekends, flying up Thursday night and then back on Monday morning. We haven't seen them for something like six months, so we're excited about that.

Then the weekend after that (Oct 6), Heather is taking her geologist certification test, the ASBOG. She doesn't actually need certification to be a practicing geologist in Michigan, as they don't require certification there, but it will look really good on a resumé, and may be needed for some projects anyway (like something federally funded). I'm sure Heather will chime in and correct me if I said that wrong.

And I guess that's about it.

Kurt out.