Unwinding

Apparently when I'm de-stressing I just don't get much of substance done. I think it's OK though because I feel Much Better.

I fooled around with glue and glass globs.

 Candle holder.

Looks pleasant in the dark. (As do I increasingly so as the years pass).

 I've been painting my bedroom and I'd be done, but for one thing.

I have a lovely oak over-mantle that used to live in my parents' cloakroom in the house in which I grew up, and has been living over my dresser since I moved into this house over a decade ago. My father put it up, and I vaguely remember something not going all that well in terms of aesthetics, but it's been secure on the wall so I haven't given it any thought.

 I had to take it down (with the help of my son) in order ro paint the wall, at which point it sort of started coming back to me when the screw and its anchor fell out of the wall when I moved the screwdriver away, leaving a hole.

No worries, I'm magic with the putty knife and joint compound, so I happily filled smoothed waited and painted.

When I went to drill the hole for the new anchor a couple of days later, the patch was still soft, so I removed the misbehaving soggy joint compound, bought some heavy-duty stuff which claimed to dry in one to five hours and used that.

 Over the paint, unfortunately.

It took about a day to harden, at which point it was dimpled by the few fingertip tests which verified its slowness to harden, so I'm waiting for the next layer to dry and meanwhile my muscle (a.k.a. my son) is off on vacation for a week and a half so the over-mantle rests on the floor against the wall of my bedroom.

I turned my eyes to another project but it's not quite done yet.

 It involves replacing this ugly lamp which I never loved but now positively dislike with something which starts with a block of wood, drilled and stained and varnished.

There's glue and paint drying in my back basement.

And some wiring to be done (electrical as well as the bending type).

This project is a proof-of-conceptt type of project in which about ninety-eight percent of the time was evenly divided between looking up instructions and prices online and buying and returning parts to and from Home Depot and Lowes. And I'm not done with that part even.

Its partner should take about fifteen minutes in total, evenly divided between ordering the parts online and assembly. That is, if this one turns out to be successful.