all play and no work

Wednesday evening looking east

A thought occurred to me yesterday while I was at an estate sale with my sister that I might not be semi-retired like I've been saying but actually retired. I have not been pursuing the etched/carved glass for some time now and I think we only did 3 jobs last year even if one of them was the big A&M job and only one very small job so far this year, more of a favor than an actual job though we did get paid for it. And we sell the occasional pate de verre piece. I'm not retired from that, just the etched glass even though I haven't made anything new in months. It's just that the weather and the garden and the yard and the flowers and the birds and the bees and all that. There's still some work to do out there but it is starting to get hotter and I can't spend all day doing it like I have been. So today I'm cleaning off the two large horizontal surfaces in my 'in house' studio in preparation for starting some new models during the hot part of the day, even though one of the horizontal surfaces has all my wax working tools and wax spread out all over it. It all needs to be cleaned and neatened for a fresh start. Right now everything is covered in dust and cat hair.

it's worse than it looks

probably should have shown you the before picture so you could be properly impressed

These estate sales that we go to are all pretty much alike. They were a treasure trove when I was collecting glassware to make the totems. I still manage to score something cool now and then like this rusted metal candle lantern shaped like a firefly that I got yesterday, which speaking of fireflies have been out the last several nights. It's going to get hung outside next to the back door.

I picked up these paper fans at another one a while back.

I have to wonder at who prices some of this stuff though like this totally rotten wood falling apart covered with spider webs and filled with ancient nesting material bird house for $3. That should have gone straight in the trash.

The other thing we did was stop at a plant nursery on the way home to see if I could find a new porterweed (that's the butterfly magnet shrub that made those long stalks with the small pink flowers that I can never remember the name of) to replace the one that froze and I did. The other thing I was looking for they only had in big pots and I didn't want to spend that much so I got a bulbine (which also froze and didn't come back) for the new flower bed.

Then Minnie and I went for our walk and checked on the garden and listened to the birds and watched the fireflies and that sounds like retired to me.