11-18-09

Wow....next week is Thanksgiving. Stef will be coming home on Thanksgiving day and I will probably head to Joan's house for Turkey Day. As usual, it will be a shorter day for me because I am the only one in the family who has to work the day after Thanksgiving and with the end of the month coming on the Monday following, I have no chance of taking a vacation day to be off.


I have been busy trying to finish up nagging projects, as always. I am really proud that I finally have finished the last project of the Hoth costumes - the backpack. As the photo on the left shows, I have gotten the pack to be wearable. I plan to wear this very hot costume to the "Star Wars In Concert" event simply because it will be a chance to have one of each of all of the "fighting Rebel" costumes on display all at once...that has never been done as I am only one of two Hoth Trench Troopers in the continental US.

This past Saturday I did an event at the Glen Ellyn Public Library. It was a "Star Wars" Spectacular and I brought along all of the "Star Wars" games in my bag of tricks. It was nuts!
The room we were in was fairly large but it was packed to capacity. I was in the one corner with the "Lightsaber Training" game and had a non stop line for almost two hours. Even without the full Jedi undertunic on it was a sweat-fest in my corner. Where it is always fun to get together with everyone, crowds like we had can be stressful.

On Sunday, I finished up a project that I have been working on for over a month. The 3 X-Wing Pilots in the photo on the right were part of that project. I completely re-did my flightsuit and made modifications to all 3 of the flak vests. Added extra pockets to all 3 flightsuits, made 3 belts with mini-flares, 3 ejection harnesses and 4 leg flare holders. I think everything came out pretty good.

While I was sewing on Crix's flightsuit (Crix is the Pilot on the right in the photo) he was working on straightening out my R2's legs. Thanks to Crix, my R2 is back standing straight! Now the rest is up to me. I still have to stabilize R2's legs as they tend to "kick out" when you roll him. Crix gave me some ideas on how to do that and I bought the necessary items but first I have decided to fix up some of the things I had to tear apart when I put the 3rd leg on. I just want to see R2 looking like his old self again.

I was going to go down to Navy Pier on Saturday for another Star Wars event, but the truth is I really don't have the time nor the money to do so. I can't afford to spend the entire day down there as I am so far behind on everything at home. If I go just for a few hours in the morning, I could not afford the gas and parking to go down there alone and I would not want to ask anyone to leave early if I car pooled. Oh well, there will be other days and other events.

11-5-09

The roof is finally done and I now have the bill too...lol...$7,520.00! The green roofs look really nice and where they will generate extra heat in the house in summer...they will also collect heat during the winter. Around here, the furnace is on a lot more than the air conditioner, so I hope I made the right color choice. I figure that spending that kind of money I wanted to see a difference so I didn't want to put another white roof on again.

For sure, between the house and the Jeep I have been driven to the poor farm. At least I feel over the years I have been smart in as much as I followed my parents lead of always saving money for a rainy day...and this year it has poured on me.

I keep thinking that "next year will be better" but somehow....they seem to get worse.

Tonight I am meeting my siblings to "celebrate" (and I use the term loosely) sister Joan's 50th Birthday. Boy, we are sure all getting old. It is hard to imagine that yet another sibling is over 50 years old.

Saturday I will be heading out to Goodenow Grove for the annual "Mike Deardorff Memorial Workday". We have been working on that area near Plum Creek Nature Center for a number of years now. When you only get there once a year, progress is slow.

10-23-09

I feel hopelessly depressed today..
I guess the only thing good about today is that it is Friday...

The roofers didn't come out yesterday to finish the roof on the garage and there are also a few pieces missing on the house...but at least for the most part the house is done.

Tomorrow I will be chainsawing at Joliet Junior College...though I don't know what the weather is going to do. Sunday will be busy as I have a meeting at work on Sunday morning...then straight to Lionel and Emmas for the "armor party"....somehow...
I don't feel like partying....

10-20-09

Yah! Finally...the new roof is underway. The roofers were here today and got the house mostly done. I was amazed to find that the heating guy was out today also to replace the old battered brick chimney with just a pipe and cap. The old chimney was falling apart and to fix that with brick again would be over $1,300.00. The metal pipe was a LOT cheaper...though I still don't know the price but it was supposed to be between $400.00 and $700.00. The garage roof will be done tomorrow...weather permitting.

It has been another nutty few days of doing Star Wars events. Sunday was the "Making Strides Against Breast Cancer" walk. Our team did manage to pull off quite a fundraising effort this year and we went over $4,000.00....which is amazing. It was pretty cold in the morning when I got there but then again the sun was not even up yet. With all of the work needed with the memorial armbands and running around, I was warmed up in no time. Sister Laura and brother Jim showed up to do the walk also. I had brought my Stormtrooper armor for Laura to wear. It was weird to see her in it and I hope she enjoyed herself. I don't think she had too much trouble with the thigh pieces causing Trooper tracks..at least I hope not.

I got all of the memorial armbands packaged up and mailed off between Sunday afternoon to Tuesday. I know they are just pieces of cloth, but to me they represent much more than that. I am just glad that how little it might be that I have done something that Mom as a victim of breast cancer would have been proud of.

Then Monday I brought my Armor with me to work and did yet another event. I went straight from work to the Borders Books in Oak Brook to do a booksigning for "Death Troopers". It was an enjoyable troop mostly because I knew I did not have to get up for work the next morning.

I spent Tuesday finishing up the garden clean up and working on costumes for others.

10-12-09

I know I say this all of the time, but it is really frightening how fast time is going by as I get older. It is now already just about the middle of October and I feel like October just started. It is already getting cold and I am not looking forward to winter anymore. Last year winter was brutal with all of that snow. With my thermostat set on 60 degrees in the house to save money, it already feels cold in here. This has been a brutal year for me and just does not seem to be getting any better. I am still waiting for signs of life from the roofer. Since the squirrels chewed open a piece of my roof it has been a real sore spot for me. The roofer was supposed to close up that hole temporarily till he could get here...of course he didn't show up so I went up there and did some temporary repairs.

I have to say that if it were not for all of the Star Wars events I have done lately, I would probably be sinking into a pretty deep depression. I do slap myself from time to time and remember that there are others that have it much worse.

Work has been extremely difficult since the other dealers lost their franchises I come home every day feeling mentally exhausted.

At any rate, I am in the midst of yet another costume production...lol...that will help me keep my mind off of things.

With the freeze we got this weekend, I will be putting the rest of the garden "to bed" hopefully later on today. Where I have been "cleaning up" the garden since the end of August, it is just such a huge task these days. I know come spring, some of the plants are going to get nuked....the job is getting to be really large.

At any rate I have done so many events the last two weekends that I found myself coming and going. Last Sunday we Star Wars geeks were on hand for the Ron Santo Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. It had rained a lot in the days preceding so the area was a huge mud pit and it drizzled a little while we were there, but not too bad. As always, it was a good day with my fellow geeks and I had fun with some of the kids games. The event was in Orland Park so at least I didn't spend a lot of money on gas!

Then this past Saturday I did two events. The first one was at the Pottery Barn in Oak Brook. It was a corporate event with Pottery Barn making a $10,000.00 donation for our participation nationwide. It always feels good to make a differnce like that. We were there for about 3 hours. One hour early to get dressed and then the doors opened. What a mad house! I literally did nothing but take photos and sign autographs for two straight hours. Every time I looked the line was out the front door. Weird. One thing I can't figure out is who can afford ANYTHING at Pottery Barn. Everything was so expensive!

Straight from the Pottery Barn event I went to the Borders in LaGrange for a book release from DK Books on the the "Star Wars Legos" book. There was a nice crowd there but not nearly the amount of people at Pottery Barn. We did some trivia, some Q & A and more photos. Joan and Laura stopped by to see me and it was certainly nice to see them. We wrapped up pretty quickly and I was able to get home in time for 5:00 PM Mass...always a good thing as I had to get dressed again Sunday morning for the last of the triple header.

I had set up a little "Donation Station" here in Mokena as a last effort to raise funds for "Making Strides Against Breast Cancer". I will be doing the walk this coming Sunday. There were supposed to be like 5 of us for this event but several people had to cancel. The morning started with just Tom "Crix" and I. I wore my Stormtrooper and he wore his X-Wing Pilot (the new costume I am working on) as the "light" and "dark" sides of the Force. There was a blurb in the local paper that we were going to be there and I did have one person come by to purchase a memorial armband. We even got $20.00 off of the Mayor of Mokena...lol... We were joined later by Steve in his Imperial Officer costume and we ended up collecting $120.00. Not great...but not bad either. Today I am home for my 4- 10 hour day thing and I have so much garden work to be done and I do hope to work a little on the X-Wing costume project as I am doing this not only for me, but for several others as well.

This Sunday is the Making Strides walk and I am hoping for some decent weather. We got rained on for the Dwight Parade, drizzled on and cold for the JDRF walk, and I was certainly cold in white plastic on Sunday. So, I am due for a little good weather.

9-27-09

Egad....20 days have gone by and I have not posted to my blog. In my advancing years, I probably have forgotten half of what has gone on in the last couple weeks. I do remember that I have been very busy!

On Sept. 12th we did a "Sharefest" workday at my prairie restoration site. There was a lot of people at this event. I did chainsaw duty for this workday and since it was a warm day to begin with, I got really tired out from the heat and sweating after 3 hours had gone by.

Last Saturday morning I did an event in Wheaton at the Gauthier Clinic for Make-A-Wish. Apparently Dr. Gauthier is a "Doctor to the Stars" and in addition to all of his effort for Make-A-Wish on this event (which involved many different stores at a Mall in Wheaton) he also brought along a surprise for us Star Wars geeks. He had a screen used Darth Maul double saber that was given to him by Ray Park as a "job well done" for work that the good Doctor did on Ray. We had a great time goofing off and went down to the Pet Smart, the Game Stop, and Dominicks stores in our costumes and got a lot of looks and laughs.

The next day we had a parade in Dwight IL for their Harvest Festival. The weather forecast was questionable, but the rain was supposed to hold off till evening...WRONG! As our group was staged and waiting to hit the streets of Dwight it started to rain. It just seemed funny to see all of those expensive costumes getting soaked. Everyone took it in stride and it stopped raining while we actually walked the Parade. Everyone had a great time, as always. The crowd along the parade route was very supportive and cheered us on. Many who were hiding from the rain in their garages along the parade route came out to get a closer look as we went by.

Yesterday I volunteered a couple of hours at the annual "National Public Lands Day" workday for the Forest Preserve Dist. of Will County. I spent the morning stacking brush and herbiciding. In the back of the Jeep was my R2 D2 because straight from the workday I went to Bolingbrook to the home of Tom Jozwiak-master builder! He had a little gathering for the Midwest R2 Builders and several of the Droids were present. Tom also had an amazing array of other Sci-Fi Robots, Droids and memoribilia that would blow your mind! I was glad that the rest of the Builders did not see a problem with my R2's new stance so I am a little more jazzed about getting back to finishing the repairs and upgrades to my little buddy and get him back on event duty again.

Also, the last week has been consumed with roof issues. The squirrels took a "bite" out of my roof and were making a mess. I did not want them starting to get used to getting into my attic or rafters. I had called a roofer a couple weeks ago for a quote....and now it was serious. The roofer came out and it will be around $7,500.00 for a new roof! My god! And there are also chimney issues that a mason will have to come out to fix.

fun fun fun..

9-7-09

Labor Day Weekend....aptly named as far as I am concerned as I have "labored" all weekend. In the course of the last 3 days I have:

Removed the mildew/washed the outside of the house.

Cleaned and powerwashed the deck and fence.

Trimmed the shrubs on the west side of the house.

Mowed the lawn.

Did laundry.

Cleaned the house.

Worked on the costume book project.

Finished my Hoth Hangar Soldier/Gray Yavin Tech jumpsuit.

Began my Hoth Tech Hat (as seen on the left).

Cut down more of the garden and put it through the chipper.

Took a couple fitness walks.

Grocery shopping.

Organized part of the Star Wars room.

and....

the only fun I had was meeting my friend Carol at Panera this morning for chit-chat and breakfast.

Where it was a pain, the removal of mildew and cleaning the outside of the house really did go well. I thought that I would have to re-stain but the Jomax cleaner did such a great job that the house looks "new" again and I won't have to stain! The only thing I have left to do is put a sealer on the deck and fence now that it has been cleaned and "brightened".

I feel I am at least a little ahead of the game because the next two months are going to be "killer". I have so many things on my agenda through the end of October that it is a good thing I got so much done this weekend otherwise I would be really far behind.