Continuing miscellaneous

It's starting to look like spring around here! This morning B. & I headed out for breakfast, taking advantage of the fine weather. It was still cool, but pleasant. We walked over to one of our favorite breakfast places - about 10 blocks from here. We were surprised to find no one there yet other than the cook and waitress. Of course, it was only a bit after 7:00 AM. We were up early thanks to our frisky young cat Devin.

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After breakfast we headed home, checked email, and then headed out to run errands. We had quite a list of them lined up - dry cleaners, drug store, liquor store, Costco, the mall, Petsmart, Wal-mart. It would have been nice to narrow it down to two or three places but each one had something unique that the other didn't offer so we'd run in, get what we needed and run out again.

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Monday night I went to my woodworking class fully intending that it would be my last class. I've been working on my building blocks and have a nice assortment. All I need to do to them is sand them and then coat them with mineral oil and I hardly needed to attend class to do that. However, by the time I got to class I realized I didn't have any triangles or arches as part of my blocks. With advice from my instructor, I used the band saw, cutting out some of the more unusual blocks to add to my collection. And then I used a couple of sanders, including the circular sander which I hadn't used before. It was really a lot of fun and the two hours passed by quickly. I enjoyed it so much that I think I will attend next week's final class and maybe make a few more unusually shaped blocks. I've chamfered them all, giving them nice beveled edges with no splinters for anyone using them. And I've done some sanding using the machines at class but I still want to do some fine hand sanding on each, probably while I'm sitting out on the deck enjoying the nice spring weather.

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I had decided that I'd give up on woodworking but after last week's class, I'm not sure. Maybe I'll sign up again for another class next winter. Next week I start a new class I signed up for - knitting socks using double-pointed needles. Though I've been knitting for many years, I've never had much success with double-pointed needles and I'm hoping this sock class will help me overcome that.

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On Tuesday I went down to the homeless shelter as usual. Most of the guys needed no help but got right to work on their resumes or job hunts. One guy came in and said he really had difficulty with computers and would need my help. It didn't take long to see why he needed help - he couldn't read!! I've worked with a lot of guys over the past year or so since I've been at the shelter and a lot of them needed some computer help or help with spelling but this was the first one I worked with that couldn't read - at all. We struggled along and managed to get emails sent to a couple of employers. When/if he gets any response from any of them, he won't be able to read them!! Sometimes working with the homeless is quite overwhelming.