Jenga

OK:  who hasn’t played Jenga with the kids or grandkids?  It’s the one where you unstack blocks until they fall over and you shout Jenga and the one who made the stack fall is the loser.  Usually the end of the game is accompanied by some pouting, gnashing of teeth, or crying or something by the loser because they are teased by the winner(s).  Especially if it’s a youngster or dad.  That’s Jenga!  But we play a different variety here in the RV.  Kat has become quite the crafter.  She knits, beads, and sews now.  She just got a new sewing machine and has already made some cool stuff.  PJ’s for her and a carving tool roll-up holder for me.  And she is making pin cushions that look like flowers.  Well all of this stuff requires some thought and organization when it comes to storage.  Especially the beading.  We have lots and lots of assorted containers for all those little beads, pins, wire, hooks, loops and who knows what all that are needed for all that crafting.  You’ll just have to imagine what it looked like and why I shouted JENGA!, the first time I saw it.  Just not something I can duplicate. 

Winter is still making an effort to hang on here.  We’re only going to have a high of 66 today with a low of 51.  I know.  Tough break!  But it did get down to 39 last night.  I woke up between the cat and the Kat this morning with a ‘hot flash’.  I said something about being between them and Kat said you never had it so good.  I said that’s “hard to argue but I’m still hot”.  So Kat started fanning me with her book, just to make a point.  But my discomfort from the ‘hot flash’ didn’t last long after I got up.  39 is cold in a tin box.  But coffee and the furnace took care of it.  We never had it so good!
I’m still doing lots of carving although I don’t have the luxury to do my crafting inside like some people I know.  I keep telling Kat that Jack gets to carve inside but it doesn’t seem to ‘cut any ice’ with her.  But I’m not suffering.  I have a key to the wood carving room over at the Hanger.  The Hanger is kind of a hanger looking metal all purpose building.  It houses the tennis/Pickleball court, a rock club room, Ping Pong, a couple of all purpose rooms and the woodcarvers/stained glass room.  Sometimes I even do some carving while waiting to play a game of Pickleball.  I also do lots of carving outside the RV at our picnic table. We bought that not too long ago for the primary purpose of woodcarving and of course brushing the Jade and providing her a place to nap, and knock off anything that happens to be on the table while she is up there on her string.  One of the unintended consequences was the extra benefit of the exercise we get running up and down the RV steps to untangle the stupid cat who has her string wrapped several times around the table leg.  We just finished staining it yesterday and then we went to Lowe’s and got a 6” wood vice so I can clamp wood well enough to make carving cut-outs with my various saws.   I would like a jig saw but really don’t have lots of room.  I probably could put one in the shed but then it would just stay here and the wood vice is very portable and I made it so I can clamp it to any picnic table for our travels.  I have lots more time than money anyway.  I’ll just do my cut-outs the old fashion way.  By hand.  We just went to “The Rally on the Rio’, another woodcarving show, and I checked out the price of cut-outs and rough-outs and it was ridiculous.  Another reason to do my own.  I just trace a pattern on wood and then start sawing away.    I’m also helping Tom, our Master Carver, with a beginners class we’re doing her in the park.  He does most of the teaching but I’m able to help out some with sharpening or individual instruction.  Maybe show somebody which end of the knife to hold, or how not to cut off a finger and dispense Band-Aids if they try.  It’s fun.  Helping out I mean, not dispensing Band-Aids.   
Damn!  I could swear I just saw a hawk or maybe a merlin on our outside window shade.  Heard a commotion and saw a large banded tail and then it was gone.  Because we’re always feeding the birds, sometimes it happens that a predator like that passes by in an attempt to find an easy meal.  Sometimes they’re successful and sometime they’re not.  This time it wasn’t a great commotion so it must have been unsuccessful or just some other large bird.   Oh!!!  I did get a pic of the Buff Bellied Hummingbird you didn’t see in the previous post.

Today I am going with Bill over to Tropic Star or Treasure Island or some RV resort over in Pharr, Texas, to help put on a Pickleball demonstration.  This will be my second.  Pickleball is really taking off down here.  Thanks in large part to Bill and Karen Hopkins from here at Bentsen Grove and who I’m proud to say are good friends of ours from Memphis.  I believe I mentioned Bill and Karen in a previous post from Memphis.  Bill is responsible for organizing play at the Mission Rec Center and really helping get Pickleball off the ground here in the RGV.  Let’s here it for Bill and Karen.