Catching Up from the Weekend

This past weekend Gryper and the Missus arrived with bags of gooseberries from Vee's garden. Let me tell you, you don't pick them and plop them in the pot. The instructions say to "top and tail" them. What that means is pull off both ends of each one with your fingers. Messy. Time-consuming. And don't try popping one in your mouth. Nasty!

That having been done, we got all them all topped and tailed and into the pot. This is the "before" picture, see all the tops and tails we had to take off? Blister city!

After cooking them all up and canning them, we got 11 1/2 jars of gooseberry jam. It seems it's one of those jams you love or you hate. I found that it rocks with peanut butter. Mum loved it on the blueberry oatmeal pancakes I made. It was a fun, old fashioned way to spend a Saturday morning.

After getting the jam done and the kitchen cleaned up, we prepared for Cyclin' Granny and the Mister to arrive for supper. As you can see CG was the same charming house guest as always.

We had a great time laughing, eating and yakking.

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Belly Buttons

"What the heck would prompt a post like this?", you ask. Let me tell you ..... no, let me whine to you.

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We have some kind of bug that loves me (they all do!). I s'pose I should say, loves the taste of me. This little sh*t seems to like our closet. If I wear something that I haven't worn in a while, I'll get bites. They're like mosquito bites only they last longer and itch more, and they're usually a cluster of 3 or 4. (Bug Dinner Party? One really hungry one?) My solution to this is to spray the closet with Raid every 3 or 4 days and that seems to fix the problem. I forgot to spray the closet for the past week or so and now I've got bites. Right in and around my belly button! Freakin' torture!

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Some people seem to be okay with their belly buttons being messed with. Some claim they put salt in their belly buttons so they can dip their celery while they're laying down. Wack jobs. I don't like mine touched, it feels awful. It's a deep almost pain-type feeling that is difficult to describe. These bites actually make me feel a little nauseated. I can feel them deep into my gut.

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Don't get me wrong, I think belly buttons (Mum used to say tummy button) are cute, especially an innie, outies a little less so. When my two babies were born, I saved the little dried up pieces of umbilical cord that came from their belly buttons, much to their father's disgust. He thought it was repulsive, I thought it represented the link between me, and my babies and my mother, my grandmother and grandmother's grandmothers. The little stubs disappears many, many years ago and I've always been suspicious that he threw them out, but who knows. They're gone.

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Did you know some people have plastic surgery on their belly buttons?? Horrors! It's called Umbilicoplasty. Ugh!

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How many out their who read my mindless maunderings have this same feeling about their belly buttons being left alone? I'd be pleased to know, please comment.

The Violin Progress For The Week

So Here's what I've been doing all week. After the first day, the purfling grooves were finally cut and ready for the purfling to be inlaid. Cutting this channels was tedious, but here it is all done.

Here is the back with the purfling inlaid followed by the front.

This is what the neck looked like on Wednesday morning.

I started working on it on Wednesday and got it cut out.

Thursday, I marked some of the lines on it to start carving it.

This is how it looked on Thursday when I left for home.

And this is Friday's work. See how the edges of the scroll have been cleaned up and the grooves down the front of the scroll are started.

This is how everything looks today.

I am so excited about the whole process.

Violin Progress

After having taken my violin making class, for four of the five days, I have one picture to share. After today, I'll post the others. Carving this was so exciting!! Just out of time.