I gave myself a couple of projects, one was to build the top of my router table and the other was to dig a shallow trench to divert water from flowing down my driveway into the basement of our back house (or what I call my woodshop.)
I had purchased all of my supplies months ago, but have been so busy as of late that it has been hard to get to working on the router table. Sure I could purchase a router table that wouldn't take up much room and I could store it after each use, but I felt it wouldn't support the projects I am going to use it for. The original plans were for a 20" x 30", but I decided to modify my plans to make it 24"x 48" so it could handle the work I was going to put it through.
Basically, I took 2 1/4 sheet pieces of MDF, measured out the space for the mounting plate and cut it out of both sheets with the jigsaw. I thought about it afterward that I probably should have glued the sheets together first so the cut would be more even, but it wasn't anything a sander couldn't fix.
Then I had to take the router with a mortising bit to carve out the shelf for the mounting plate. Normally this would be done with a rabbeting bit with a bearing on the end to keep from taking off too much material, but that would be another $30 if I could have even found the right size. The mortising bit and freehand was going to have to suffice. I started cutting and I noticed that it looked like I was cutting too deep. I stopped, readjusted and went back to work. The completed job was serviceable, so I stopped there and glued the pieces together, once dried, I sanded the edge where they were a little uneven and it came out nice and smooth.
While the glue was drying, I grabbed my yard hoe and went to digging a trench to stop the water from flowing into my wood shop. What gave me the idea was, one day, I was down in my shop and it started raining, raining really hard, raining so much that water poured down my drive way, it looked like a small scale version of the flood at Universal Studios on the Tram Tour. It filled up the step down into the shop, the only thing keeping it from going in was the door. Water just kept coming and coming, I am lucky there is a sump down there, but I still want to keep it dry, so I dug the trench. After directing it to a small creek that runs under my back yard, it was great to watch the water flow down it, kind of a sense of accomplishment.
After that, I went inside to make some dinner and wait for Danielle to get home. While I was cooking, my friend Robert called and asked about any holistic kidney remedies that I might know of considering my situation, I should know something. Unfortunately, all I could think of was 100% cranberry juice. His wife had complications from a previous surgery that was causing her kidney to swell and was about to go in for surgery to repair the kidney issue. Robert, if you are reading this, we are praying that everything goes smoothly.!
Danielle called and asked me to come meet her, I had totally spaced on the fact that she had an interview at the Gap. When I went to meet her, we went shopping at the Gap because I needed a new pair of jeans and they were having a 25% off sale for veteran's day. We hung out and talked about our day, then we had to part ways, she was going to our friend, Heather's house, for discipleship, and I was headed to dialysis.
It is just as of late that dialysis is starting to wear on me, poor sleep, early mornings, loud morning crew and patients, it is a rough way to wake up, especially when you are in and out of sleep all night. I have started taking ambien to help with the sleep, but I had forgotten it at home, so I had to suffer through. At least I was able to get out earlier than normal because I had gotten there so early the night before. Sometimes I don't get out until 7 am, when they are a full hour and a half into treatment of the morning patients.
Today was tough on me and I am not sure why. I didn't take off much last night, I had pretty decent sleep, I didn't have lingering effects of the Ambien from the night before. I was sluggish when I packing up, then I came home and crashed on the couch until 11 am. I did a few things around the house and went to work. Work wasn't so bad, although, I thought it would be considering how crummy I felt. We ended up making the day by a significant margin, however business tapered off pretty sharply after 4:30 pm. It was cold and wet out, so I assume most stayed in rather than brave the weather. The slow traffic allowed me to get a lot of work done.
When I got home, I found that a key piece to my next wood shop project arrived, my Jorgensen woodworking vise. I needed it to complete my bench. The neat part about it is, it has a piece that allows me to clamp large pieces to the bench for sanding and planing, or even gluing for that matter. That is for another day.
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