As planned, mia_mcdavid and I spent much of the day painting for some friends. The home improvement bug is getting to us: We are both noticing things that need doing at our house. However, money is tight.

In the evening Mia visited another friend from colgaffneyis for dinner, while James (our son) and I ate at a local Roseville restaurant. Afterwards I made sure James got ready for bed by a reasonable time–he is back on a school schedule.

When that was done I realized I was feeling quite depressed. The holiday was over, back to work in the morning, and I was alone–James was in his room and Mia was still out. After some aimless web browsing I went out to the shop. I looked at my current project and contemplated a very rough sawn surface. I then looked at my couple of my planes, especially my Bedrock 605 (a gift from Mia) with Hock blade and chipbreaker….

About 1/2 hour later I

• … had a nice pile of shavings on the floor.
• … had a very smooth flat surface
• … had worked up a bit of a sweat.
• … was feeling much better.

And Mia was home….