Summer Projects, Continued

First update: the dreads! We are now three weeks in. This is how they looked yesterday, down:

They are starting to knot up quite nicely on their own, and they are also looking more natural as of late. I'm quite happy with them. Today it was nasty hot, so I put them up in a ponytail with a headband and I'm relieved that I can still do that with dreads:

Yup, I'm laying on the floor as I type this. I love the floor.

So, other projects this week. First, I cleaned out the closet in my craft room and finally found a use for that old wood pallet that's been sitting on my front porch for ages. I screwed a few pieces of wood in as extra shelves and am now using it as fabric storage:

Of course you can see all of my Christmas decorations on the right side. On the left, camping supplies, Halloween decorations, and costumes (for Roswell and Halloween) and accessories including makeup.

Also, my yarn:

I made a couple of jewelry holders this week too.

One of them has all of my cross jewelry (as it turns out, I have a lot)

The other has a screen behind it and holds my earrings and necklaces. Some of these things (the bright blue stuff) is my grandma's old costume jewelry. The round ones are clip-on earrings, so I put them on a ribbon and hung them like a necklace.

Finally, I added a shelf in the living room to display the family collection of MKT model trains. My grandpa on my mom's side worked for MKT for years, and my dad worked on the railroad once upon a time, too. MKT is no longer in existence, so the models are kind of special:

The higher shelf on the right contains my mom's leather-bound Louis L'amore books. I haven't read them yet but I'll get around to it eventually. It also contains my grandma's 8th grade English book, a shell casing from the 21 gun salute at my grandpa's (dad's side) funeral this year, and a rather unique gift from a former student. The framed document above the trains is my grandpa's (mom's side) fishing license.

All in all a busy and productive week at home! I also enjoyed a long rehearsal today with my lovely colleagues and CLASString Quartet members. Grieg is lovely! And our violist, Linda, is my latest henna convert!