Tuesday, June 1, 2021

How It's Going

How’s it going on my new schedule?

I’m crushing it on my old paperwork, the garden is looking respectable, and the office cleaning and reorganization is coming along. Sleep is still a work in progress; the melatonin doesn’t seem to be working well for me, and I’d rather not keep relying on the Benadryl.

But the customizing is… a problem. The rest of the household is not too keen on my cracking out the Dremel drill and hacksaw during the small hours, so my diorama plans have changed a little. 

Idea One (the best idea) involves too much customizing for the amount of time left on the clock anyway, so that one’s on hold. The effort there has not been wasted: the mold involved is part of a larger project, and I will get back to it eventually.

Idea Two (my first idea) was supposed to be something quick and simple, but the mold I selected for the task is less amenable to customizing than I originally thought. I think I can still make it work, with some compromises. I’ll give myself until the end of the coming weekend to decide whether or not to abandon it.

Idea Three (the “clever” idea) is actually coming along rather nicely. But it’s also the one I think the judges will be least likely to “get”, and it also involves a painting technique I haven’t tried before. 

So that’s my conundrum. I’ve got several writing projects to occupy my time between now and the weekend, so that’s where my head’s going to be at for the next several days. I’ll probably hem, haw and peck away at the two remaining ideas in whatever down time I do have between now and then.

But as we head into BreyerFest season, let’s all take a moment to stop and smell some freshly unpacked Stablemates Unicorns:

There’s nothing special or noteworthy about any of them, other than the fact that I think it’s a little weird that the dark blue Warmblood Unicorn is named Topaz. While topazes can come in almost any color, they are most commonly some shade of yellow or orange; dark blue is usually only achieved via heat treatment. 

Inner rock nerd me isn’t a huge fan of stones that need heat treatments, other than Tanzanite. If they wanted a dark and mysterious looking stone, I would have gone with Galena or Hematite.

I suppose I should also mention the Limited Edition BreyerFest Stablemate Kaleidoscope:

Ooh boy, he’s something, ain’t he? Rainbow resist-dappled pearly blue with white points: the only thing missing here is the glitter. The 6500-piece count sounds like it should be enough, though I have no idea what they’re basing that production count on. 

The name Kaleidoscope, incidentally, has been used at least once before, on a Special Run Pinto Trakehner way back when. He’s always been one of my favorites among my Trakehner collection, partly because Pinto Trakehners are actually a thing.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I also suffer from insomnia; I found that while Benadryl sometimes worked, it left me unpleasantly groggy afterward. I've found that a fractional dose of Dramamine is much more pleasant both for easing me to sleep and doesn't leave me groggy when I wake up.

Anonymous said...

Dramamine never makes me sleepy, just to have to pee a lot.

Christi said...

Glad to hear I'm not the only one who thought Topaz was an odd name for a blue-black horse. I always thought of it as a more gold/tan/brown color.