What Will We Do During the Cold Months?

Today is a day off for DH, but it's going to rain - the weather people say up to an inch of rain today. That will make a brisk autumn day rather miserable for working on the castle. We picked up 34 new capstone blocks on Sunday and he is hoping to get those cut and glued down this week, but the October weather may not permit it. Certainly today he'll just be working on putting rock into the interior of the steps, not gluing which requires dry conditions. So here's where we're at after a summer of work.

The steps are almost complete. He's cutting the last of the capstones
and gluing them into place, then filling the tread with river stone.
Apparently it takes 2-1/2 bags of stone for each step. The home supply
stores aren't carrying stone over the winter and we don't have quite
enough rock, so he'll end up backfilling one or two steps with dirt for
the winter. 

We have steps and two tiers on the north side, and two curving tiers on the south. We're almost completely finished with the north portion and just need to capstone the south. Next year we'll be pulling away more dirt to reset the patio. He's stressing over how much to pull down and how he wants the new stones to be set. I assume he'll stress about that all winter long *sigh*. It's a DH thing.

So here's the big view. The new capstones are on the wall to the left, the
steps are getting glued, the tier on the right has been capped and the
left tiers are almost there. The four stones at the bottom left
of the last step are the new patio stones we will use. He's thinking
about patterns and heights. 

All I can say is that it's beautiful and totally unexpected. I never thought a simple project to help us with drainage would turn into such a huge thing. It's kept him busy throughout the summer which has been great! When he's busy here, he's not breathing over me when I'm trying to get things done either at the shop or at home. We still have a lot left to do before the back yard is complete, but it's been an amazing summer/fall.

Not my cartoon, but certainly my sentiment. I am a creative person in
many media and I have stories to tell visually and in writing. I'm hoping that
I will get a better handle on how to make a novel progress from beginning
to end and also how to self-edit without too much secondary editing.
That's my real problem because my thoughts outpace my fingers. 

I haven't written anything, at least not that I've put up for public scrutiny, except for my blog. I used to be quite prolific, but as much as I enjoy playing in Tolkien's universe, I really want to dive into some original works. So I jumped in last night and signed up for a year-long on-line writing course. I'm hoping that by the end of it I'll have a good grasp on those plot tendrils that keep waving in front of me. At the very least, it will be good to write again. The best part is that even though it is a year's class, I'm not pinned into a year's time. I can work through at my own pace and go back and take any of the lessons as I need to. I know myself - time is a premium and I'm NOT giving up my gym time to sit on my ass and write. Nope - not going to happen.

Although methodology tends to have a lot of similarity across classes,
the approaches differ. Will this new class be what I need? Maybe. If not,
it won't be the first time I've wasted money in search of that elusive
novel. I have hopes for this class structure, though, and I've been saving up.
So it's an early holiday gift to myself. 

Speaking of the gym, time to grab my bag and go. The pool calls and I'm still trying to knock one more pound off before Halloween candy and Thanksgiving turkey makes it more difficult. I have things to do and places to go, so have a wonderful Tuesday!