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The Housewife

May 19, 2012 at 11:24 PM No comments

I don’t care what anyone says, that’s a job.

Mrs E got hired at a nursing home a little while back for a full-time nursing position, so all the household chores and stuff moved over to my plate. So far, I’ve done these things in the last 8 hours:

  • Changed and cleaned the litterbox and the poop closet (as opposed to routine scooping)
  • Did 3 loads of laundry
  • Did 2 loads of dishes
  • Cooked gravy steaks, rice, and corn for our supper tonight without setting off smoke alarms
  • Did some more work for Chez Ebbles between these chores

Yesterday, I vacuumed the place and squared away the living room, then cut the housekeeping short to run errands with Mrs E. Tomorrow I’ve got another large chunk to cross off my to-do list.

That’s nothing to a real housewife. They take care of kids, they go grocery shopping, run errands, clean up after everybody else, and they cook 3 meals a day as opposed to 1. Day in and day out. And they don’t even get paid for it. I’m not a stranger to this, but the last time I was the Strangely Masculine Housewife of the family was…yeah, 2002. I’d forgotten what a job it was.

So, this post is for all of you full-time housewives and househusbands out there. In case anyone hasn’t told you this lately, thanks for keeping households all over the world running smoothly.

Now I gotta go get out of this French maid outfit. Fishnets chafe.

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(May 14 2012) Shuffling things around

May 14, 2012 at 6:42 PM 13 comments

I’ve spent the past several work sessions buried neck deep in research and planning, and I’ve also been reorganizing and revising my plans to better deal with all of the various ideas that keep popping up.

Spaceport Updates

I added a new set to the spaceport project page for the structures, but it’s not active yet. I don’t want to start taking money for that just yet–I’d prefer to hash out the basics with all of you first, after we wrap up the vehicle set. So it’s up on the page, but not active.

I cleaned up the spaceport vehicle set’s description to reflect how things have actually been turning out. The trucks in particular crossed off several now-redundant entries on the original list, so those were consolidated into truck bed modules. Likewise, the van has mutated from a simple people carrier into a modular jack-of-all-trades. I also fixed some terminology (replaced “passenger bus” with “mobile lounge”, for example).

Hangar Bay

I also revisited my master list to determine what to do with the military versions of many of the above options. These items have been spun off into a hangar bay set, and I’ve also added the Apsara and Haflinger to that project to start the ball rolling. Work on the hangar bay won’t actually start (or resume, if we want to get technical about it) until I’ve completed the spaceport set, so both of the hangar bay sets are also currently inactive.

You can see the hangar bay project page here: Project: Hangar Bay

Outside the spaceport

Lately, we’ve been talking about zorty trains and spacey stagecoaches, and discussing the rest of the world that the spaceport is located on. I am still in the research and brainstorming phase, so there’s no project page yet, but I’ll also be fleshing out the rest of the frontier planet. I’ll be starting with the towns on the outskirts of the spaceport after wrapping up the spaceport and hangar bay sets.

News, Paper Models, Workbench ,

(May 6 2012) More truck stuff

May 6, 2012 at 2:04 AM 25 comments

I managed to do some more work on the trucks today and part of yesterday.

This is the mechanic truck, which is a combination of the standard cab, utility truck bed, extended bumper, outriggers, crane, and compressor/welder/generator module:

The purpose of a mechanic truck is to service other vehicles and equipment, and it carries the necessary tools and equipment to do that.

This is the bucket truck, which combines the standard cab, utility truck bed, bucket lift chassis module, bucket lift, standard work bucket, extended bumper, outriggers, dually rear wheels, and dually side flares:

This is notionally a facilities management vehicle intended for basic structural maintenance and stuff. I did it primarily because the lift arm itself was intended for the de-icing vehicle, but since all I had to do to add a bucket truck to the list was model a bucket, I went ahead and did that.

This is the new heavy-duty truck, shown here as just the cab plus basic chassis:

It started out as an attempt at a more European style light truck, but I gave that up because van-based European work trucks have significantly smaller wheels, and it wasn’t possible to gracefully pull off that look with the bigger wheels on the pickup-based truck. I decided to turn that failed attempt into a heavy duty truck with some judicious polygon pushing, making it larger and beefier.

I plan to use it for the really heavy stuff: refueling truck, deicing truck, lube truck, snowplow, and stuff like that. I’m probably also going to do a flatter-nosed cabover that can share the same rear chassis.

I’ll be doing the same thing with the van that I did with the light duty truck–the full body vehicle will be a standard van in both panel and people carrier versions, and there will also be a cut-down van chassis with various bed options that share the same smaller wheels as the van. Most of the same options/accessories for the pickup should be compatible with both the light truck and the van.

Want to support this project?

Visit the project page for more details: Spaceport Set I

News, Paper Models, Workbench

Update on Bug

May 3, 2012 at 1:47 PM 17 comments

Just got back home. I’m still a wreck.

I didn’t want to bury Bug in the backyard of a rental property that we’re not even going to be living in a year from now, and we didn’t want to dispose of her like she was garbage or something. I don’t even know how to explain it, it’s just…I wanted something better than that for her.

We made arrangements for her to be cremated and took her in late this morning. We’re picking her ashes up tomorrow afternoon. When we buy a home of our own in a few years, that property will be her final resting place. I still have her favorite printer, the one she used to nap on all the time when she was little. I’m going to be burying her urn on top of it, so she’ll be napping on her favorite printer forever.

I’d like to take the opportunity to thank everyone for their support. It means a lot to us that you guys care, and it’s a big help to me emotionally knowing that you guys are there, and we don’t feel so alone.

The financial support you guys provided in the hopes of saving her was enough for us to give her a dignified and proper farewell, and I’m extremely grateful for that. I would have been even more of an absolute wreck if we’d had to dispose of her or leave her behind on some rental property, but you guys made it possible for her final resting place to be a far more appropriate one.

I’ll be working on a memorial page for her later today. I think it’ll help me work through this, and it’ll give me a chance to share a little of the happiness and joy that Bug brought into my life.

I really appreciate all the comments from you guys in the previous post. I can’t overstate that enough. Thank you.

Update: Her memorial page is now up here.

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My cat

May 2, 2012 at 11:48 AM 16 comments

We’re taking my cat Bug to the vet tomorrow morning because she’s pretty ill. She had some sort of urinary tract infection that inexplicably went from “almost better” to “much worse” in just a few days, so we called around and found a vet that had an opening for tomorrow.

It’s an unexpected expense, but fortunately I was able to scrape together the $193 the vet wants for the visit, blood work, and miscellaneous stuff. However, any prescriptions or other medical procedures will be additional charges on top of that, and I’m a bit worried about being able to cover those additional costs. If you know anyone who might be interested in supporting the spaceport set or picking up one of the shuttle variations, I’d be grateful if you could spread the word.

12 years ago, when she was a kitten, she decided she wanted me to be her best friend and she turned me into a cat person. This is hitting me pretty hard, and I’m not dealing with it very well emotionally. Posting about it helps a little.

I hope she’ll be okay.

Update: She didn’t make it. She passed away around 7:20PM CST. I was on the sofa with her when it happened. Thank you, everyone who helped out and sent us messages of support.

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