Something I forgot to post about in my fall quarterly post was cleaning up a card catalog that a colleague gave me, that I use as a coffee table. The drawers are not all original to the cabinet so the finish on some were in different stages of gummed up, but only one was in very bad shape. The brass hardware was more problem. I polished it all, taking it out of the drawers and cleaning it all, but some of the outer finish was warn away and so it will always have green spots, unless someone professional actually cleans it.
The top has a totally different finish, it's actually not attached to the cabinate either, so I left it as is. It's sturdier and can handle more than the shellac on the body.
I don't have any before photos, but here it is now, in it's cleaned up glory:
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| This was completely green and illegible. |
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| One of the drawers in better condition. |
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| Shiny! |
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| Sorry it's so back-lit bananas. This room is either really bright or completely dark. I tried turning it around, but then it was washed out. What can you do? |
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Holidays! Between being on an academic schedule and having some vacation days I had two full weeks for the holidays. We drove down to my parents on the 22nd so that we could get our tree on the 23rd.
We then spent a lovely almost-week in Mystic with my parents, my brother and his wife.
On Friday we drove back up to Providence, depositing presents and repacking. This also gave us time to go to the Rehoboth contra dance and burn off some of that holiday eating we'd done and be thoroughly tired enough for our train ride out to Ann Arbor.
Our adventure out to Ann Arbor started with walking to the train station and realizing that we'd either misread the schedule or read the wrong schedule for the commuter rail into Boston, so that's a fun way to start! But we snagged some Amtrak tickets and got to Boston around the same time we would have according to our misinformation. We watched little kids play with the train display while a guy walked around inside it, godzilla style, fixing things.
From there we had a shorter leg of our journey to Albany, where we had another chance to walk around. Somewhere between Boston and Albany we also gained our new friends for the trip, a mother and her 3 year old daughter, who sat across from us for the rest of the ride.
From Albany to Ann Arbor felt incredibly long and slow. It was hard to be tired after mostly sitting all day and it was hard to find a comfortable sleeping position for very long. We made it to Vasya's mom's house 24 hours after leaving ours!
There we had a great time cooking together, decorating the tree with someone who hadn't decorated a tree before, eating all the food we made, walking in the woods and on the frozen pond there and making music.
Our train ride back was much better. We were exhausted from the week and got on the train after being up and around all day so we could fall asleep right away, but we were in a car full of sick kids...
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When we got back I went to work on Monday and thought I was tired from the week before, even though on Sunday I'd puttered around and felt fine. But I woke up sick on Tuesday and spent the next two days out as well. Making for an odd work week and the first time I'd spent multiple days in a row out sick in a long while. I didn't have flu symptoms, but I'm not really sure what it was. I slept almost all three days.
I took Friday easy, including missing yet another dance in a long line of missed dances, to be able to spend the weekend with friends.
One of my childhood friends, Roza, lives in Boston and came down to spend time with me and go to my local yarn store. We caught up, knit and walked to the store and back and talked about sewing. Something I don't do, basically at all, and Roza is quite good at. Vague plans, that should turn into real plans, were made about some sewing projects. I'll post anything that's made :)
The next day a family friend brought us a chair that had been my grandmother's. My parents lent it to her during a move, but she wanted to get it back to our family. Her daughter lives in Boston, so everyone met up in Providence for lunch and then moving the chair up.
I only have one sort of dark photo of it for now, but let it be known that that slip cover is a work of genius. It fits very well so that it looks neat, but has built in room for movement between the wings and the back. My grandma could sew.
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This is where things went very crazy.
The next week Vasya's grandfather died. He hadn't been doing well for a while, but while we were in Ann Arbor we'd visited with him and he was still living in his own apartment. Vasya and his oldest brother had talked to him about family history and were beginning a project into making a family tree and notes. So, Vasya got back on the train to Ann Arbor for the funeral and helping his family with his grandfather's things.
I had planned a birthday party on that Saturday. The plan was to meet up at the skating rink and then go back to our apartment for desserts, cocoa and tea. Then all of my dance friends that were there and I were going to go to dinner on our way to the English dance that night. My mom pitched in and helped with some of the desserts that Vasya was going to help with and Saturday morning I made sure I prepped everything so that when we got back for desserts the warm drinks would be ready quickly. Unfortunately my mom fell and dislocated her shoulder. My dad and I went to the ER with my mom and I handed my keys off to a friend, instructing her to let anyone who showed up in and which keys went to which door. The ER was as good as one could hope for, though very, very slow. So everyone waited at the apartment as long as they could (and took good care of themselves making tea and cocoa and enjoying the desserts while sending photos of themselves. It was great! They left a nice colorful pile of presents for me for my return), but in order to make it to the dance they had to go at some point. Eventually my mom was back in semi-working order so my parents dropped me off at home (after a key exchange was done at the ER drop off) and we opened their presents in the car. After changing into dance clothes and grabbing some food I was only one or two dances late to the English dance where I was surrounded by everyone as soon as I walked in the door. It was so good to have part of the day go as planned and laugh with everyone.
The next week was the cold snap, which I spent worrying about my mom's arm and Vasya's family while cuddling with our stove-space heater and wearing ridiculous layers of clothing. I gave up on having anything other than hat hair as I wore an outdoor hat and an indoor hat. I caught up on bad TV shows and took walks as long as I could handle in the wind.
This is where things got much, much better.
When Vasya returned so did some heat. Hooray! I took a personal day for a doctor's appointment, so I can officially have a doctor's office and be official. Because I hate going to the doctor's I asked Vasya if we could do birthday celebrations that night, to make the day better so we did. What I didn't know was that he'd already planned a surprise party for me the next day! A bunch of the original cast came over for dinner and partying. It was lovely.
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In all that freezing cold I did get a lot of knitting done!
I made a new hat for my mom. The other one was a fun shape and great color, but didn't look so good on my mom.
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| This one is way more her style. |
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| And has a gorgeous decrease pattern! |
I made a pumpkin hat to match the baby pumpkin hat I made, for the dad, at his request.
Just as that little baby is growing out of hers. So it's good I made her a new hat as well!
And finally, a scarf for her mom:
