Homeboy's New Project

So Rachel has been hounding me to work on the blog, particularly to do a post about my latest guitar project. So here it is. Rachel's early Christmas present to me was to a Vista Series Jagmaster that we found on ebay. The thing was in less than good shape.

It wasn't terrrible but I really wanted the real headstock not a crappy hack job by some guy with small dreams and an even smaller work ethic. Plus I had my own dreams to own an apple green Jagmaster. (I accidently sanded through the protectant in some spots)

(By the way I went with the Jagmaster because they are super customizable, they play pretty dern well for squires [especially these originals] and they have a strat trem, which I am down with)
So anyway, I went to town taking it apart. I had all but given up hope on finding a color straight out of the spray can that would be a dream color. I was trying to hunt down fillable spray bottles I had used years before when I came across the apple green color by valspar (found it at Lowe's)

I bought a new lefty paddle neck from ebay (Because they were out of inverted jackson metal headstocks....uh, kidding)  and came up with this masterpiece:

PS the tress rod was already installed and the tuning key holes, drilled.
Moving on, went head first into the painting and was surprised the color looked better than I hoped. I really wanted to have the painted matching headstock (hence the reason the neck is taped) so I used my 2nd generation skills to mask off the headstock and came up with this

(a little blurry, oh well) after a couple of coats of Deft semi-gloss laquer I had this

The body was an exercise in patience. I had to spray it out in the shed and crud would just continue to collect on it. There was plenty of sanding between coats. It didn't turn out perfectly, but well enough. Oh by the way I wanted a white pickguard and this didn't come with one. Even though the red "marble" one looked oddly cool...I went with the white. Gave the pickguard a slight sanding with 180 grit followed by 600  and then sprayed it. Came out like this

I gave this a few coats of lacquer and it turned out a lot better than I feared...uh, thought.
So everything was painted and coated...

(It's a little dark) I was ready to put it back together. PS putting the tuning keys on the neck wasn't as easy as one might think. They each came with a little peg that required extra drilling and a good eye on getting all the pegs aligned (I was tempted to have the pegs all jauntily placed but I realized that this was real life not a music video in a Flinstones' episode)

A little semi-skilled placing, screwing and a lot of soldering later I had this kool thing.

So that's the guitar so far. Originally, the pickup switch went in that hole at top of the pickguard. The previous owner thought a different location was in order. I thought about putting it back where it belonged, however, my next endeavor may very well be to install a tiny theremin in the large routed area in the top of the body. That hole will go to use. I hope to change pickups. Maybe Duncan Antiquity IIs. Maybe P 90s. Maybe something else entirely. I will definitely switch the pots and put on strat-style knobs to match. Anyway, stay tuned for more.

Bird Update

Well. We think he's getting along better. (He, as in the bird). He's a lot happier, and not freaked out of Billy so much. Progress. little at a time..

The Eating Well

Here are some of the yummiest meals we've made.

Ribollita

out of Sunset Magazine, Issue January 2009.

Greek Feast

out of Sunset Magazine, Issue September 2009.

Coconut Curry Chicken

out of Simply Chicken, by Susan Meadows.

Indian Stew

out of 50 Great Curries of India, by Camellia Punjabi.

Fresh Basil and Fresh Moz Pizza

out of Sunset Magazine, Issue August 2009.

We love to eat well as you can see. I'm glad I put an effort into this part of our lives. We feel healthy and I know all of the ingredients are pure. Although it is sometimes expensive and time-consuming, we think it's totally worth it. :)

Fighting the Sickness

Billy and I have been fighting sickness for the past few days. Sore throat in the morning, runny nose too, and right now, he has body aches. We've been up to our old tricks, as fighting the cold is concerned. A tablespoon of apple cider vinegar once a day (twice if you can handle it), green tea, more sleep, try to cut back sugar all the way, and of course washing our hands a lot so that we don't get other people sick, or catch something more. I've also heard that natural honey cuts back the cold significantly as well. So we will see if we can beat it before it gets too bad, and hopefully we'll be feeling 100% by Thanksgiving. It's always a drag to be ill on holidays, and plus my sisters are coming up from Phoenix and I haven't seen them for a month. :\

-Rachel

PS: The apple cider vinegar should be organic. The brand we get, and what so many others recommend is Bragg's.

The Bird Experiment

We're moving my cockatiel bird from my parents house, to mine and Billy's house. I had not been with my bird for a long time, being at college, getting married, etc., so he has become a needy squawky bird. What's worse is that he has always been jealous of Billy, since I took the place of his "mate". This is going to be an experiment on a couple different levels.
#1 To get "Sweety" (ironic name) to quit his annoying squawking habit.
#2 To get him to learn to love Billy, and to accept him as part of the family.
How?
#1 Since we'll have his cage in the living room, he'll be more a part of our family, watching us interact, and go about normal household activity. This will probably help him become more secure and not be so needy. The second idea is to introduce new toys into his cage so that he can be preoccupied without needing my attention all the time. Maybe some paper to chew on as well, someone recommended that.
#2 Billy will hold him everyday for 5 minutes, and also feed Sweety a treat. I'll have Billy be the sole person who feeds him a treat. Hopefully, these two ideas will help Billy and my bird bond.
We'll see!!

Finally, Update!

So, this blog is going to move on to other topics and conversations. I will slowly move the wedding contents over to http://junetwentieth.blogspot.com and Billy and I will gear this one to be more about our projects (art, food etc).

This weekend has been wonderful. We got to hang out, drink a lot of coffee, go to church together (yay!), and have a good creative meal that Billy put together. "Lomo al Trapo" You wrap the meat in cotton cloth, and put it directly on the coals in the bbq. We baked yams, with a mixture of butter and brown sugar, and I made an oil and vinegar dressing for the salad. So good! and such great company (Virgil and Jody).

We will be attending Jeremy and Bryn's wedding in a couple of weeks, and we're excited for that. It will be nice to witness their day, and get to see some old familiar faces again.

The Official Photos

Here are some photos, to see all of the ones we posted go to the Portfolio on the wedding blog.


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(6) Kenneth Cole. Billy bought them half-price because they were display shoes!


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(12) Billy ordered his suit through mysuitshop.com and had it custom made. The quality was excellent, and the price even better! The groomsmen's suits were h&m (inexpensive and easy for the boys to figure out). Ah, isn't my husband so handsome.


(13) Our photographers sweet idea! Since my engagemnt ring was my wedding band as well, I handed it to Billy before the ceremony. We did not want to see each other before the ceremony, so this was a very cute idea! It was so cool to be that close to him, yet not to see him, and to have that excitement of what was to take place shortly.


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(24) A special moment, the "talit", prayer shawl, wrapped around our hands signifying the special union between husband and wife. It means that our intimacy is to be strictly gaurded, nothing comes in to interfere, and nothing goes out which is private between us. "Our tabernacle"- our safe place.



(28) There are many things I like about this photo. The venue's setting is surrounded by the beautiful aspects of Prescott, such as Thumb Butte in the background.
I also love the back of my wedding dress. My mother and I found the dress at a local boutique called "Ciao Bella" (which has unfortunately closed within the last year). I had tried on about fifty dresses up to finally discovering this shop. After trying it on, the fabric won me over, and of course the way how I felt in it; like a true bride! It is a Mikaella gown.



(29) Group shot! I wanted to take a photo of all of our guests, so I had the photographers take a shot "summer camp" style. They stood on the balcony of the bridal preparation room, and we all gathered beneath right after the ceremony. This was so fun, and we are so happy to have this photo, because even if we didn't get a candid shot of certain guests in other photos, we still have this large photo to refer to!


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(44) Another unique touch, which you can barely see in this photo, we added a snip of rosemary to every napkin. It is a German tradition to wear rosemary at weddings to bring blessings upon the new married couple. (My family is German, and we thought it would be a nice tradition to carry over into our wedding.) My parents and bridesmaids cut it fresh from our yard, and tied yellow ribbon to each sprig.


(45) The Rings! Both rings turned out beautiful. I had Billy's specially made by Anne Kiel through Etsy.



(46) Our home!