A month measured in dust

This month has been crazy. Time is flying past me marked only by how many iced coffee cups pile up around the studio, or how deep the saw dust is that constantly rests on my desk. If sawdust were gold, I'd be wealthy. I would have to give to charity. But as it is I have to sweep a lot. Or leave the dust alone and live with it like it's an obtrusive mold within your walls that you just can't flush out. That's what I get for wanting a proper desk right by a chop saw and in the direct path of my enthusiastically far-spitting planer. You're welcome, Sawdust, oh please, make yourself at home!

And definitely the most exciting new addition to my shop is that adorable little item you see above. A-DOR-ABLE! So cute, in fact, that I think this band saw needs a name. What should I name it? Is it a she? I think it might be a she. Oh, and we're the same height! It's like we were meant for each other. And she comes with a story -- having traveled all the way from Maine, where my boyfriend's father used it for a number of years in his garage and before that, it was in Rhode Island in the basement-workshop of his grandfather. My hunch is that his grandfather mostly used it for making things relating to electric model trains, as there's quite a number of them flying around in endless circles down there with motionless little figurines hailing for the never-stopping train to stop. I'm sure this little bandsaw cut plenty of pinetree silhouettes or... or.... other things pertaining to model trains, yeah. And now she's with me! I can't even tell you how happy I was when the pickup-bed opened to reveal this beauty inside. They were all hush hush about it and wanted to surprise me. Can I just tell you how great it feels to inherit a power tool from your boyfriends father? It feels great. There's something inherently satisfying about that, like I've overcome, you know, some jibberish about proving myself as a female woodworker yadda yadda.

So to wrap it up, here's a shot of the studio at it's fullest moment in history, probably ever. It made me feel like the studio itself was the piece I was building, and at that moment I had just finished it. I was done and I wanted to leave it just like that, untouched. No packing things up, no mailing things out and saying goodbye to them. I'd just sit in the doorway and survey the completed work, with my empty coffee cups, nameless-bandsaw, and Sawdust at my side.