Monday 10 July 2017

Getting motivated … or not.

Motivation

Day after day we continue to be deluged with near-record rainfall. May was about 3 times normal accumulations, June came in at about double normal, and we’ve already had a normal July’s worth of rain and we’re just 1/3 of the way through the month. Golf has been rained out more often than not and riding hasn’t fared much better with only a few hundred kilometres put on the bike since I got it – about 4 fill-ups worth. Our garden is drowning and all I’ve done with the boat this year is bail it out – several times. And if one does decide to venture out of doors the fact that mosquitoes and black flies are breeding at a rate previously unheard of for this time of year will drive you back inside in short order. Depressing seems too mild a term.

IMG_0050Instead there’s been a lot of indoors activity, including adding to my collection of ‘some day’ projects.

As some may know I’ve started making cigar box guitars just for fun. Up until now they have been acoustic only because I didn’t have an amp. That changed Sunday when I picked up a gently used practice amp that will allow me to start putting pick-ups in my guitars and test them out. I have a few that now need to return to the workbench to be modified and they have been added to the projects list.

IMG_0135I also scored a vintage Singer treadle machine base on Sunday. Not sure what I’ll do with it just yet (the most obvious solution is to make it into a table, but I have some other ideas as well). It’s intact but for the pitman arm which is missing and I’ll need to make a replacement for that. On this particular model the arm was made from wood so I should be able to create a reasonable approximation from some scrap oak or maple. That’s another project for another day.

Now I just need to get motivated to “git ‘er done”, as the locals would say, and start finishing some of the dozens of other small projects I have underway.

11 comments:

  1. I have been lacking motivation all spring/summer. It was colder and wetter than usual, now we are in an exceedingly hot spell. Half of BC is on fire and the other half threatening to catch fire, its so bad they declared a state of emergency last Friday.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The situation in BC is pretty nasty right now for sure so given the choice I'll take the rain. Still it's depressing.

      Delete
  2. Sound like you are managing to keep busy even with the rain. Our 8 months of rain finally ended, hope yours doesn't last that long.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Well, bad weather or not, it doesn't look like you will be out of ideas and projects any time soon, David. I hope, it dries up eventually.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Every few days the weather guessers say something like "By next week we should be into normal summer weather." Problem is next week never seems to come.

      Delete
  4. David, don't think that your province has been singled out as the north island of NZ has had record rainfall too. We've been cut off from the rest of the island several times with landslips.

    Thanks too for the memories. My maternal grandma had a fully operational Singer sewing machine like that!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Misery loves company, as they say. Still I wouldn't mind some of that heat from Arizona heading this way.

      Delete
  5. My brother had a beautiful pine table top placed on the Singer sewing machine base. I remember visiting them and pushing the treadle up and down whilst having tea...

    ReplyDelete
  6. David, cigar box guitars? That's awesome. I'd keep you company in the weather misery department, except thar I promised myself I would quit whining about it 😜

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I suppose I should quit whining as well - it does no good anyway. Yeah, the cigar box guitars are fun to make and I'm even learning to play a little bit.

      Delete

Please feel free to comment, but any comments with commercial links will be deleted. You have been warned.