State of the Blog and Mind

Phoebe on guard at dawn. 

To say I have been struggling mentally lately is a bit of an understatement. Losing Lani (our Great Pyr/Anatolian Shepherd mix) back in October left a huge hole in ours lives (at least there are three others doing their best to fill it) and was probably the trigger for a lot of this, but there are a lot of other factors at play. 

The biggest single stressor has been getting the 2nd house ready for sale. We acted as our own General Contractor on the remodel as the owner of the original company that we would have used literally died while he was working on the quote, that really throw a spanner in the works as we didn't know that had happened for a couple of weeks. We were also up against supply chain issues, so the mantra became "must be in stock" came into being. It limited some of the selections but it also guaranteed that we would have everything we needed for each step in the process. 

The house has received a complete make over at this point, more than we had originally intended. New problems came to light as we tore out and replaced the kitchen, primarily  plumbing (thank goodness we knew an excellent plumber). Tearing out the kitchen revealed a problem with waterlines in the second floor so those had to be redone. In fact probably 80% of the copper lines in the house were replaced. A new furnace went in since the existing one was in a grey zone for replacement, the fuse box was actually illegal (apparently its now considered a fire hazard, our entire neighborhood uses this old style fuse box as do about 90% of all homes in the Denver area built from 1978 - 1985) so we had to bring that up to  code. The list went on and on and it seemed never ending. However, it has come to and end and it goes on the market this Friday and its almost a completely different house than when we started. Its been a long 3 months to get it ready. Of course its currently snowing here and which means I'll have to go over and shovel it on Friday before the showings begin.

I recently learned that the virus has struck a bit closer to home than I would like. A friend of mine that I haven't seen for about 5 years, passed away from it. He decided not get vaccinated and paid the ultimate price for that decision. My wife has a cousin in the hospital with the virus and we are not sure if he is going to make it, again a decision not to get vaccinated in this case by a 1st responder. These things weigh heavily when they strike that close to home. Fortunately our vaccinations are up to date and we have not been exposed although my brother and his wife did catch it during a vacation to Hawaii, they were vaccinated and pulled through without a problem. So a positive note there.

Getting the house ready has had a huge impact on my hobbies and I have literally not lifted a paintbrush or built a kit for months now. I have three Stugs and one Stuh still waiting for their weathering, I think I started those almost a year ago. The Sophie's Revenge pirate ship still sits in pieces, at least its in the box and not strewn across my desk. Also cleaning out the house has really made me re-evaluate what I'm still interested in playing.

On the project front:

1) Rebuild the Sophie's Revenge, with an eye to using it only as a display piece, possibly a competition entry for a future ReaperCon. 

2) Finish the Sledgehammer, again just as a display piece and a competition entry for ReaperCon

Wargaming armies I will continue with

1) 28mm WWII Skirmish - While I may cut back on what I will actually paint, I'm still interested in this period, at this scale along with the terrain to play on.

2) 28mm AWI - More likely this will still be oriented towards a skirmish level but maybe army oriented since the "armies" are not particularly large.

3) 15mm ACW - Still one of my favorite periods so I'll keep these around. They are not likely to see any action in 2022. But the finished portion of my Union army is plenty large enough to play with.

4) 15mm Napoleonics - Kind of on the edge on this one still, but I do have a fair amount of British infantry finished, mounted and ready for battle.

5) 28mm Wild West - This one is probably still on the top of my really want to do list. Including a "portable" board for conventions.

6) 15mm Vikings - I'm on the edge with this one at the moment. The promised set of rules from the kickstarter have yet to see the light of day although the miniatures are great.

7) 28mm Rohirrim - Another one on the edge. I rescued everything that I have for this and I still get excited to paint them but I'm not sure its worth doing a whole army at this point.

Periods being dropped:

1) 15mm WWII - Dropping this which means I have an old 15mm FOW Afrika Korps army that needs to be sold off.

2) 28mm Napoleonics - something I have always toyed with but definitely dropping it from the list at this point. It just takes to much time to do them justice,

3) 20mm Modern - I got started but I'm just not feeling it any more. I have enough vehicles to build for WWII without adding more to the list.

Other Hobbies

I love trains and I'll keep what I have but I might start selling off some of my accumulated books and only keep the ones specific to my interests. At some point I will find space to have a layout (I actually have a place scoped out that will work). Its time intensive though so it will be last on the list for the time being. I have plans still for an HO layout based on the old Denver Warehouse district and an On30 layout based on the Colorado & Northwestern.

Woodworking - this is moving up the list. Its the one thing that I was able to work on while the house remodeling was going on. I'm quite pleased with the pens, both acrylic and wood, that I have turned in the last month and it provides a much faster result that anything else I do which is really nice and quite satisfying.

This is the latest round. The one in the center is acrylic which is an interesting material to work with. I think I have turned about 40 pens at this point, most of which have been given away as gifts. This last batch is definitely some of my best work.

Hopefully things will start looking better in 2022 and I'll endeavor to keep the blog going at a reasonable pace, although probably drop my goal of 12 posts a month to something a bit less demanding.

Hoping everyone has a better year in 2022! Pay attention to your mental health its just as important as your physical health.