November post-shutdown stuff

I see I haven't posted since the middle of September. The kitchen is pretty much done. There's a few odds and ends I still need to attend to, like painting the trim around the new window, redoing the caulk where the tile meets the counter, and picking knobs. I have the aspiration (we'll see how it goes) to make fused glass or polymer clay knobs, but haven't done anything about it. These bases to hold the glass or clay are really inexpensive ($.59 each) and the plan is to buy those, install them, and get to the glass stuff when I get to it. 

I love how everything turned out. Really do. It's great to have the additional counter space there to the right of the (new) stove. I love my ice maker!!!

Mr W is well. He's doing a project for school where he has to make/produce something with the help of a mentor. I play board games with a couple and the husband has a vintage printing press. He's agree to mentor the kid and we'll go over to their place tonight to see the thing. I think it's really cool, his teacher gushed about how cool of a thing that was, and he's little hesitant I think because he doesn't know really what a printing press DOES. So it will become clearer tonight, and even though I pushed this on him a little, I think he'll like it.

I've also been making a lot of new stuff. I decided to post pictures here more regularly, so here are a couple of new bracelets. I love love love so many of the pallets from Design Seeds, and pilfer them regularly for my stuff. 

Blue bracelet in my Etsy shop here.

I'm doing one craft show next month, and have been making things with an eye on that show. It's the same one I did last year, and I'm looking forward to it. 

Pink/green bracelet in my Etsy shop here. 

Work is good, too. I was off for the shutdown, and as a contractor did not get paid for my time like regular feds did. Boo-hoo - I did feel really sorry for myself for a few days, and was angry about it. The rep from the contracting company took me out for coffee and was really nice - she said one of the ways the government shows that contractors are not like feds is that they don't get paid when they can't work. So be it. I find I am much happier if I leave it in the past and move on. 

Button key ring in my Etsy shop here.

I've been working on three different projects at work, and getting DNA sequences for three genes in different populations of mosquitoes, so it feels like I'm turning my wheels, but I am getting my data slowly but surely. I could us a minion... My boss went to the island of Yap for a virus outbreak investigation. It is almost literally in the middle of nowhere - go look it up. I think I'd go if they asked, but they didn't need me for this one. There seems to be occasional/frequent talk of money being tight, but I'm going to keep plugging away and trying to learn new stuff. I ran into a coworker who is doing a project with tick DNA that is similar to something I want to try. He was really generous in that he said, "If you need help getting started, I'm happy to share all the stuff I did. I'm still learning, too." Yea! I love that spirit of cooperation.

Such a long post. I hope to show up a few times a week, even if just to post some pictures. Thanks for reading this far, I sincerely appreciate it.