Category Archives: Photos

Carter made this "moon cake" a couple of weeks ago. She baked it in a big Pyrex bowl to give it a half-globe shape. She also experimented with fondant for the first time to make the decorations. She tried to carve out "craters" in the sides of the cake, but they didn't quite work. She learned a lot from this one, and if she had to do it all over again it would definitely go a lot smoother!

In the old house I had my makerspace/tinkering workbench in a corner of the basement. It worked, but was a little space-limited. Plus, the kids would often want to hang out down there with me but they didn't have anywhere to sit or any space to do their own stuff - so they would hang out for five minutes, get frustrated, then wander off. But the new house had a finished room in the attic, so I built a bunch of work benches up there and now we've all got our own space to work. The family computer is up there too, plus a bench for Lori to do puzzles. It's been great! Sean especially loves it up there - he's actually camped out on the floor a few times since I finished it.

One other great thing about the new house is a small finished room in the basement with a concrete floor, which I can use as a metal-working shop. I've wanted to get into machining for a while, but didn't have the space in the old shop to add any more tools - plus mixing a metal shop with a wood shop is a recipe for a fire once I start grinding or welding. So now this little room has a brand new Grizzly mini-lathe! I'm hoping to learn a lot about it, and maybe add a small benchtop mill to this room in the future. I'll bet this little lathe will be the source of many new project posts in the near future.

I know these photos aren't going to look much different than the old workshop, but it really does feel different in person. Because the new house has sort of a third garage bay (it's not car-depth), I no longer need to share my woodshop space with bikes, generators, snowblowers, etc. It lets me spread my tools out a lot more, and makes the shop a lot more fun to work in. Plus a little natural light coming in through the man-door between the garage doors is a great bonus.

Back in August of 2016 I posted about all of the pins the kids and I had collected, and how we were sticking them into the wood of the shelves near my electronics workbench. At the time we probably had about 30 or so. We figured it was time to post an update - there has to easily be over 80 there now.

I've continued tasting any bottled root beer I can find locally, and have expanded the brands I've sampled from 12 (in the last post) to about 20 now. Although I think my favorite is still the Bulldog. I need to find some new grocery stores in the area - I've tapped out the varieties available in all my usual (and some not so usual) stores.

I don't drink, but I like the idea of craft beer. Recently I found out that there are lots of small bottlers that make root beer in the bottle, and I've been sampling all of the ones I can find locally. I think I've tried about twelve different types so far. My favorite to date is probably Bulldog (9th from the left). The weirdest one so far is the Bundaberg (the short, stout bottle - 2nd from the right) - it was really fruity. I found a cool place online called "The Root Beer Store" that stocks more than 100 varieties at reasonable prices - the only issue is the shipping is a killer. Glass bottles filled with liquid are just really expensive to ship. Which is too bad - but for now I'll just stick to what I can find around here.

A few weekends ago Lori, the kids and I met my sister and her kids at Bedrock Gardens, in Nottingham, NH. This place was really cool - I wish I had taken more pictures. It's basically a 20-acre garden in the middle of the woods, with all kinds of sculptures everywhere you look. They're only open two weekends a month - we'll have to get back there sometime and take more photos.

Carter has been becoming a really good little baker over the last six months or so. Here are just a few examples of things she's made recently. In the photo below are some pumpkin-shaped sugar cookies, some cream cheese frosting pumpkin cupcakes, some coconut macaroons, and a loaf of wheat bread. Everything was made from scratch, by Carter, with no help from us. She's amazing!