Dollhouse: Day Seven a.k.a. It Makes Me Stabby

This is the first thing I notice today. That’s glue. On my paint.

And that’s more glue. On my paint.

But that’s fine. It’s a lovely day, I’ll get lots done.

This is the roof. I have to put it together today.

“Mark and paint the roof where they overhang on the sides.” No. I know I’ll screw it up. I’ll paint that when I paint…

THAT white spot red. And that won’t be today.

By the time I was finished with the roof, sailors for five miles were blushing.

Then I started noticing allllll the little muck-ups. As if the glue on my paint wasn’t bad enough. Pro tip: DON’T DROP YOUR MDF A MILLION TIMES BECAUSE IT WILL DENT THE POINTY ENDS.

That doesn’t look too bad, right?

Wrong. The opposite side sticks out more.

Somehow, the tape failed and the roof slipped.

That’s supposed to be even, top to bottom, and it’s not.

Don’t even get me started in here.

So! Moving on, I went to the gable roof.

Yeah, that’s a problem. I can have a pointed roof, or a mucked up edge that I can potentially fix or hide with shingles. I went with the shingles idea, but now I’m not so sure.

These are what I THINK are all the parts to work on the bay window inserts. Let’s just say it took me about wetting my pants four times and snatching pieces off before the glue caught to get them right.

Because I have five windows and I started to doubt my sanity, or at least my ability to count.

BUT LOOK! I have most of a tower!

The back doesn’t look like much, but you see that bracing bit? I was ready to murder someone when that kept falling during the roof install.

What’s this? Window frames? I have to paint thirty sets of window frames. I made a video that won’t play here, so I may post it to Facebook. I ended up painting one side and… had nowhere to put it. So I had to hold that POS and dry it with a blow dryer until I found a way to hold them and paint them.

I told you I was stabby.

And here’s where we’re gonna pause because I have to go get my taxes done tonight, and like… eat food before I die.

DOLLHOUSE TOTAL WORK HOURS: 39.5 

and counting.

Because those damned window frames are not gonna beat me today.

ETA:

This part drove me insane. The porch was off, so I had to splice a piece together.

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Dollhouse: Day Six a.k.a. I Wanted to Take a Hammer to the Thing

I actually did. This one part was just not going in right and a hammer was necessary, I tell you. I learned a few things today, too.

My favorite invention ever.

It’s an old plastic cup, stuck in a roll of duct tape. It holds my paint roller and doesn’t tip over. WIN

I learned that painting little parts before you can glue them in is tedious as hell, but necessary.

I learned that I really have to go into that room not flustered. I forgot to Kiltz one piece and went straight for the paint. Oops.

Mimi said, “Get your shit together, Mom.”

Then these crazy bastards wanted me to draw straight lines.

I was glad I used a ruler and not their guide, because their guide was SO WRONG.

It doesn’t look like I did a damned thing, but I know I did. Those bay windows were a bitch. which is where the hammer came in on that upper part of the top right.

And that was where I left it. The roofs that I had to draw shingle lines on got flipped over and hit with the Kiltz. MiMi said she was tired, anyway, and we couldn’t see a blessed thing.

One last thing I learned is don’t go to a hobby shop for seventy-five “skinny sticks” at two-fifty a pop, when you can go to an office supply store and get one-thousand coffee stirers–same thing–for seven bucks. I need those to hand make all the wood floors.

I also learned I just might be nuts.

DOLLHOUSE TOTAL WORK HOURS: 32

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But, Astrea….

The reporter from Horse and Hound looked so confused yesterday. Read that to say, I had a friend ask me….

“But, Astrea. What about your writing? All we hear about is your dollhouse and your dogs.”

Very true, but that doesn’t mean I’m not writing.

It means that while I’m leveling a floor, I’m thinking about asking so-and-so who her agent is. When I’m painting a ceiling, I’m wondering if so-and-so would mind if I asked about his relationship with a specific smallER, but very well known, publishing house to which he submitted directly. While I’m counting a thousand shingles, I’m wondering if book two has too many sub-plots. When I go buy dollhouse supplies and buy two books I really did not need, I’m wondering about the cover that said something like “…breathes new life into Urban Fantasy” and wondering who her agent is. (That book moved itself to the number one slot on the TBR because with a statement like that, I wanna know what she wrote.) While I’m choosing paint colors, I’m choosing which of my three, actually four, series I want to focus on next.

Vampires, and Dragons, and Bigfoot, and New Orleans cats, oh-my!

Considering I only started seriously going after this brass ring a few years back, I’m still young in this game. One of my friends wrote her first book back in the late nineties-ish and it was only just published a couple years ago. If I give up now, only what? Four years in? That would make me feel like a wuss. My market was saturated as hell just two years ago, now not quite so much. I’m not in a rush. I’m trying to back up and do this right.

The fact that I’m enjoying the hell out of myself building this dollhouse aside, it’s an avenue to free my mind to think and weigh my options. I used to do this with oil pastels, but winter’s cold and oil pastels, and me, don’t mix.

There’s no rush. Publishing isn’t going anywhere, and there are a lot more options today than there was even five years ago.

Now, about that wallpaper….

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Dollhouse: Day Five a.k.a. TEMPLATES FROM HELL

Actually, it wasn’t really that bad. I had to make templates for the walls and floors while I could easily reach them, so when the time comes it’ll be easiER to accomplish those things. I had to dry fit every wall of the dollhouse.

The attic wall fell four times while making templates.

That crazy little bend in the wall is on two floors, which is one of the main reasons I need templates.

Pile of templates.

So, I made forty billion templates and it was time to get to gluing. I pulled off the painters tape from the porches and ceilings….

This is going to annoy the living shit out of me.

Both porch ceilings and one floor bled under the painters tape, and I’m a crappy painter and got white paint over the other line. Luckily, they’re minor muck-ups and I can fix them later. It bugs me to hell and back that it happened. Fixing it is a must.

Then I stopped for a second to play with the dogs. MiMi was groomed Thursday. She’s so cute, and Lily adores her. I ran and got my new baby girl a rhinestone leash and collar. Hey, a girl’s gotta have jewels and I had been at the dollhouse for four hours.

Even Baby snuck in for a minute.

So, then I took the whole thing back apart to where I last left it and glued it all together this time. I even got two lower bays and one extended bay floor installed. The bays worry me because I don’t know how I’m going to fit my hand in there to paper them, and there’s no way to make a template of the bays yet. None.

Done for today.

Oh, there was this:

I painted it the wrong color and it’s the first thing I need to use in the morning. I got one coat done and it may need another. But! You may notice….

I have no daylight left and I’m using lamps to see. Lamps that cast large shadows and I’m blind as a bat as it is. Sucks getting old.

It took about eight hours to get everything done today, but it was a lot of progress.

Things I learned today!

If you think you have enough of something, you don’t. Triple it.

Even though you spent hours labeling every part, double check it because you could still be wrong.

I have become the Tape Master. Do not question the copious amount of tape. Go with it.

If you think you’re using too much glue, you probably are.

Tacky glue actually has very little flavor, so it’s okay to twist that glue covered q-tip between your lips and tongue when you’re swiping up excess glue.

I’ll probably die of glue poisoning.

DOLLHOUSE TOTAL WORK HOURS: 26

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Things I Did While I Wasn’t Here

I only worked on the dollhouse for about an hour this past weekend, so we’ll skip an update on that and introduce you to a little black fuzzball dog.

There’s a sweet little dog under all that hair.

If you read my last blog, you can imagine I was a wreck for about a week. I severed the final ties I had to rescue and vowed to move on. Well, there was one little thing: a series of messages in my inbox. Someone I’d been speaking to off and on who had a Shih Tzu that really needed a home.

I was hesitant, reluctant to throw my heart out there one more time. Worried how Lily would react, worried how the Hubs would react. I fretted, I worried, I asked what felt like a million questions and finally told Hubs about the little dog–that she was three years old, so I wouldn’t have to raise a puppy–and he didn’t say no. I finally made plans to meet her this past Sunday. After all, I didn’t have to take her, I was just going to meet her.

When I walked in and saw this happy, rag-a-muffin little dog, I was done for. She’s rather over-protective of my lap, but other than that, she acts like she’s always been here and not little more than twenty-four hours. When it’s time to go outside, she gets in line with Baby and Lily and all three tromp to the back door. Today, she spent the afternoon at the vet, getting her shots and having a much needed trim. A groomer won’t see her until forty-eight hours after she’s had her shots, so today’s trim and wash was good enough for now. We’ll be able to see her eyes by the weekend. I predict instant death by cute.

I left the vet with her under my arm and a little rabies tag in my hand. It has a number, but this number has a name.

Memory is her name, though the nickname Mimi gets me lots of nose kisses.

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A148095

Last Friday morning there were ninety-seven dogs at the local animal shelter. Thursday night, there had been ninety-eight. That missing dog didn’t have a name, but he had a number.

I never met this dog, but my husband had. It was he who called me, the first week of December, worried because a stray dog that had been hanging around the canal had been picked up by animal control. He was a good boy, an American Bulldog, and spotty-white, just like Lily. Happy to meet everyone, loved attention, and he was deaf as a post. It would take some work to bring a dog we knew nothing about into our house, much less one that was stone deaf. He loved people, but what if he didn’t care for other dogs? We had Lily and Baby to think about, too. There were a lot of “what if’s.”

I made a call to animal control and reached them before the dog was even checked in. I was so flustered I could barely remember the name of the street he was picked up on, and they needed that to confirm if they had him or not. They did, and he was still in transit. They’d have to hold him for five days–a “stray hold”–and he might be available for adoption at that time. Might.

“Here’s my name, here’s my number. Don’t let anything happen to him.”

Later that evening, I found his picture on their web site. Intake number A148095; American Bulldog, age unknown. They had taken the picture while he was still in the truck, head hung low and sad. I wrote that number down.

On the fifth day, I went to animal control in person and gave the desk attendant his number. They looked him up and saw my name and number there, but there was also a note. His owner had called and would be coming to get him. Thank gods, he had an owner and he could go home to his family.

I turned to leave and something nagged at me, so I turned back and said, “You have my name and number. Don’t let anything happen to him.”

I’d hit refresh every day on his intake photo just to check–just in case–and he would still be there. Maybe his owner was waiting on payday? You do have to pay a fine if they pick up your pet, and the economy does suck right now. Admittedly a whole lot naively, I gave the owner the benefit of the doubt and went on thinking he would come get his dog. I closed his intake tab.

Weeks later, I received a message on Facebook from someone who works at the shelter. Was I still interested in the bulldog? The “owner” decided he really wasn’t the “owner” after all, and the dog was still there. I was floored. And the “what if’s” struck again.

I told the girl to give me a couple of days to talk to some deaf dog rescues on resources for guys like him, and I’d get back to her. After all, they had dogs in the shelter that had been there since July, so there was time. Time for us to figure it out, find him a home, or bring him home. I spoke to one very nice lady in particular who worked with deaf dogs, who ended up sending me a follow up email that asked, “What happened to the dog? He’s not in their system anymore.”

His tab that I had just reopened two days ago and refreshed over and over was right in front of me. I hit refresh, his picture disappeared, and there was only this message:

“This animal is no longer in the shelter system.”

It had been less than forty-eight hours.

I didn’t save his picture, but I didn’t need to. I can still see his face.

I’m so sorry, buddy. I’m sorry they didn’t call me. I’m sorry the “what if’s” got in the way.  I’m sorry we were too late.

I’m sorry you left this world a number.

 

 

 

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INTJ and Self-Esteem

Lily is a dear friend and one of the most well spoken/written(?) women I’ve ever met. Her second paragraph in this blog struck home with me so deeply that I simply had to share her words and hit reblog.

“INTJs derive self-esteem from essentially two places: being good at things and achieving things. When neither of those are happening at a particular point in time then an INTJ essentially has no self-esteem, because they have nothing from which to draw positive feelings about their greater self.”

Why do you think I’m building a dollhouse, love? Oh, yes, it’s a distraction, but that’s actually oversimplifying the matter.

The writing gig is pretty well sucking–everyone loves your writing, but no one can sell your genre, so they’ll pass for now, and you languish in a sea of chocolate covered pretzels and bad take-out. This dollhouse of mine is part of what I call being “in search of happy.” My brain, when in search of happy, can lead me to do crazy things that I probably shouldn’t–like get a new puppy.

So, I’m building a dollhouse to try and distract a mind that’s starving for a sense of achievement–looking for that thing done well, and, in my case, safely. Dollhouses don’t poop on the floor during potty training, and I don’t have to share my pretzels.

Go visit Lily’s blog.

*munch*

Lily White LeFevre

Friday at the office, I had another of those eerie INTJ conversations with the only other INTJ I know in non-internet space, a male colleague and work friend (who, in addition to being an INTJ, is, also like me, afflicted with self-diagnosed and highly functioning ADD). You know, the kind of talk where one of us starts describing our state of mind and the thought processes that led to it, and the other says “change the nouns and you are describing my brain right now.” We were talking about how right now, in our work and the sort of work that goes into your personal life (chores, hobbies, etc.), we’re battling anxiety and depression that are caused, in part, by the feeling of spinning wheels – of not accomplishing anything.

INTJs derive self-esteem from essentially two places: being good at things and achieving things. When neither of those are happening…

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Dollhouse: Day Four a.k.a. WTF, paint?

Yesterday, it was freezing balls in the sunroom, so there was no work done. Instead, I piled the kiddo up in the van and took a nearly three hour drive (each way) to the one and only dollhouse store in Georgia. No need to advertise for them, because they’re it. I even Googled Columbia, SC–which is closer–and got nothing, so off we went. I got things.

I have learned that unless I just have to have something in my hand to see it before I buy it, I can get things a hella lot cheaper online than spending a whole day and a tank of gas to drive to Atlanta and back.

The silver disk is a rotating base like a Lazy Susan. I’ll eventually attach it to a bit of plywood to make a spinning base that allows me to turn the house around easier during final decorating. The pink-ish wallpaper was cheap, got that there. The one in the middle, I picked up at Hobby Lobby and it was not so cheap. The third, larger paper bundle, is actually shelf lining paper that has a tan theme but with lilac accents. Might not use it, but it only cost me a buck at the dollar store. The two couches, I got scratch-n-dent for about five bucks each, when brand new they’d have been four times that.This is apparently not a cheap hobby, so I’m keeping all my receipts to show hubs how much cheaper it would have been just to get me a puppy.

Speaking of puppies, to the oh-so sweet woman who tried to sell me a half-bichon, half-lhasa puppy yesterday? I don’t care how far back on each side of mama and daddy you have papers, that puppy is a mutt.  It’s not a “designer dog,” it’s a mutt. Nothing wrong with mutts; I own, and have owned, plenty. But that puppy is still a mutt and I’m not paying over a grand for a mutt when I can get an AKC Shih Tzu for half that. C’mon, people. Get real. But I digress….

(It really was a cute dog, omg….)

The paint issue was not my fault after all. I got the boards out last night to do the final coat and found this:

Known paint issue.

Um… I can write my initials in the paint with my finger.

RUBRUBRUB and we have chalky crap going on? That is not sunlight, that is seriously where I rubbed it with the side of my hand and then wrote my initials across the chalky crap.

Turns out the paint was bad. I went back to the paint store, floor tucked under my arm as proof, and they were baffled, but they had a sales rep sample board there and they smudged their fingers across one of the dark samples and yep. Same thing. They replaced it with another brand of paint, same color, and I went home happy. I did look the paint up online and it has bad reviews for such an expensive paint (mind you, I only paid three bucks for a sample pot). The bad reviews even mentioned the “lifting,” which was my known issue. Anyway, one coat of not that paint later and all is right with the world.

THIS HAPPENED!

I’m no longer freezing in the sunroom because Hubs fixed my Amish heater.

We’re good to go.

Dry fit time.

I cannot stress how important this is. Dry fit everything. The painter’s tape really does a fantastic job holding everything in place. It takes twice as long to dry fit and then take it all apart again to do the actual gluing, but seriously, do it, it helps you get the big picture in your head before you have to commit. Plus, while you do this you can take a pencil and trace out lines along walls, etc, so you’ll know where everything goes without doubt when you grab your glue bottle. I’ve become psycho about the joints matching, and I only had to unsnap one wall and redo the glue.

Side note: the only reason I unsnapped the glue on the one wall and did it over is because I’m nuts and have to have shit perfect. It probably would’ve been just fine.

I like to dig around in the dirt and collect rocks, so used one of my boxes of rocks to weigh down the porch set while the glue drys. Handy having a lot of different interests, sometimes.

That’s when I noticed how small this house is. I think it may be because the dividers are in a temporary place just to brace walls and are making the rooms appear smaller right now, but it sure does seem… small. Anyway….

So, that’s where I left it. Notice in the last two pictures, there is no second floor and no second floor porch inset installed. Nope. There could have been, but guess who didn’t get any ceiling paint so had to stop all together because she noticed she really probably should paint the damned ceilings now, but she forgot to buy ceiling paint. *headsmack*

Yeah. That’s an unpainted ceiling.

I am my own worst enemy.

DOLLHOUSE TOTAL WORK HOURS: 18

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Fuzz Ball and his brilliance.

It’s no secret that I think Chuck Wendig is a lovable fuzz ball, and a genius in his own way. I may end up throwing panties at him at the next conference just for a laugh. Or not, because that might be uber creepy, but still. Can one still laugh while being handcuffed? Not in my experience, so I better think that through. *ahem*

Go read this. I’ll wait.

He’s right. Let your characters talk. I don’t care what they’re saying, word vomit that shit up and come back to it later. Every chapter I start sets a little scene, then there’s dialog–with a shrug or minor movement tossed in as a marker–for however many pages. Only after they’re done running their mouths, do I go back and add action/detailed movement and more scenery. Let them talk. They know what they’re doing. You’re the peasant scribe, they’re the kings anointed by the Gods and therefore infallible. Until they’re not, and that’s called editing.

Have a point, but don’t ever tell it. BINGO!  “Good writing isn’t a lecture; it’s a debate.” Amen, fuzzy-man. The title to book one in my series, AN ORDINARY WORLD, plays into the point, and only in reading the entire book will you find it.

Surprise yourself and you surprise your reader. Yeppers. One of the best scenes I’ve ever written, IMO, caused a beta reader to yell and toss the MS across her living room. Thing is, until the character got to–wait for it–talking, I didn’t know it would happen that way. Shocked the hell out of me and got a visceral reaction from my beta reader. Win, right there. Twilight Zone was playing as I first wrote that scene, and inspired it. Every time I hear that song, I grin. Ok, so I smirk. Shoot me.

I honestly don’t know about the ten key words, but I’ll do that and see what happens with book two.

Write like you think. Dear Gods of Writing, please do. I wouldn’t write like you speak, unless you’re writing dialog. Dialog is a totally different animal. Someone read a first draft of OW and was disappointed that I wasn’t a more Ricean writer. I can only be me, and you should only be you. Spill it, like only you can.

I read way too much writing advice for about the first year of taking this stuff seriously. Now I try to avoid it like the plague, but Chuck never steers me wrong because he says things in such a way that you find yourself nodding your head and wanting to give him a cyber-high-five.

Just freaking write. Be yourself. This is probably the very last time I’ll give any writing advice on this blog because I find most of it doesn’t work for me. Take what you can use and discard the rest, always. Including mine.

Happy writing.

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Dollhouse: Day Three a.k.a. I Sometimes Think I’m Smart

When I’m not. I could have had the first floor mostly together today, but I’m getting ahead of myself. I’ll just show you the things that either went sideways, or distracted me, or just pure messed up.

The steps are the first thing I’m supposed to assemble and paint. This is a picture from the box.

Something is NOT right.

Go look at the picture of the completed house, dig out two other pieces, and figure this looks more like it.

Mislabeled pieces suck. Fixed that, primed and glued the steps. Suppose to paint them, but I don’t know what color I want to paint them, so skip it.

Instructions for the floors, walls, and base. OY!

But someone(s) want to come in the room.

I had to let them in and bring one of their beds. It was the only way to keep them both out of my lap.

Blue masking/painters tape is your friend. That and a lot of glue.

I used fifty feet of masking tape. The floors and porches are glued together. That’s the house base with the box of rocks sitting on top to hold pressure on the glue.

I was keeping the little pink tags as sort of kill trophies, but they kept randomly drifting to the floor, so I eventually threw them all away.

This is when I found a pro tip about tracing out and painting the ceilings and floors of the porches. This was a good plan, but it prevented any further assembly because of drying time.

Brushes were streaky and yuk. And something is wrong with the front porch–the paint isn’t sticking in one spot. And… WOW… that’s red.

I knew I had rollers somewhere. They took care of the streaks. All this work? Five and a half hours.

This stuff is liquid gold.

So, this is where everything sits. Hubs came in and in his opinion the porch paint issue is that the Kiltz wasn’t completely dry in that spot. I agree, there was a shiny spot, I saw it and ignored it–another lesson learned. Gonna wait until that porch is completely dry (one hour) and repaint it. Should be fine, but by the time that hour is over, I’ll lose the good light in the room. *sigh* 

I hate that the first floor isn’t together today, but getting the ceilings of the porches and the porches themselves painted ahead of time was a good idea. The base is completely together and solid as a rock, so I’m wondering if I should texture paint it while it still has nothing attached to it, or use this cool method of creating a stone-like finish with paper egg crate bits, brown paints, and tacky glue (skip to step five to see what I mean), which I can do later after the steps are attached. Not sure. Gonna think about that until I have time to get back to it. I’m tired. Need food.

DOLLHOUSE TOTAL WORK HOURS: 14

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