In Eastern Europe, where I am right now, it’s already evening (7:10 pm as I write this). Back in the US, it’s barely noon, and people are still getting ready for Christmas Eve. In other parts of the world, families have already gone to sleep, and the children can’t wait to get their presents in the morning.
It’s been an interesting and eventful year for us. And as it winds down, we have a lot to be thankful for. I hope you do, too. And I also hope you find just what you need under your Christmas tree. As someone once said, we may not always get what we want, but we get what we need.
Is there something more representative of autumn than fallen leaves, being blown about by bracing, sprightly breezes? How about branches under the sway of powerful winds, beckoning chilly autumn rainstorms? I captured these scenes on video in the autumn of 2007, in Grosvenor Park, MD, but only now got around to editing and publishing it.
I’m only sorry that I didn’t have a better video camera at the time, but such is life sometimes. Now I do, and next autumn, I’ll be ready.
You might have noticed some wonderfully dramatic storm clouds in the video. Here are a few photos I took around the same time, with a couple taken that same evening, showing those same clouds.
This summer, I built a few custom shelves for our bathroom, and only now got around to writing about them.
There’s a certain quality, a character, to objects made by hand, that you just won’t find in mass-produced items. There’s also the fact that if you make something yourself, to the exact measurements of the place where you want to put it, you won’t be able to find a better fit anywhere else, no matter how many stores you visit. And there’s also the little matter of money — chances are, it’ll cost more to buy it than it will to make it yourself.
In my case, I already had the wood lying around from other projects, and I had the tools and other materials as well, so all I needed was some time. I’d estimate the total time used up for this project at around 10-12 hours, spread over several days.
There’s a quick video you can watch, where I talk about how I made the shelves. It’s going to be useful if you want to undertake this project yourself.
I hope this (along with some of my otherprojects) helps inspire you to create something instead of buying it. There’s nothing wrong with buying something that’s well-made, but most of the stuff you find in stores today is made in a third-world country, with third-world standards, out of cheap materials, and will likely break in a few months. That’s not good enough for me, and I hope it’s not good enough for you, either.
We woke up this morning with a puffy white blanket of snow covering the town. It was the first snowfall of the 2010-11 winter, and while it didn’t cover the ground, it did manage to stay on trees and rooftops, providing a welcome change in the scenery. (It’s been ugly weather most of this week, with cold, rainy days and mud everywhere.)
Raoul Pop 