Reading a long book, and I have a heavy translation project to fill my hours. So, nothing to review. About what shall I write today?

I don’t want to write about the state of the world. I’m not very happy about the state of the world, or the nation, or the state, or the community. I’m not all that happy about the state of my house, either. One of my sinks just clogged up.

At bedtime, I’ve been reading Jeremiah. Appropriate, in a tragic way. There’s Jeremiah, this young man who loves God, and what job does God give him? “Tell the people to repent or they’ll be punished. They won’t listen to you, but tell them anyway.”

“God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.” The problem is, His idea of wonderful is different from ours. From mine, anyway.

If I didn’t have a strong impression (very likely wrong) that I have a Calling to finish my Erling saga before I die, I’d be strongly considering taking up an even more unhealthy lifestyle, just to avoid the disaster that seems inevitable now.

Anyway.

I did accomplish one thing. With my hands, for a change.

I built (with my brother’s extensive help) a Viking chest, some years back, for use in reenactments. The picture above (my chest is red with yellow decorations) isn’t a very good one, but it’s the best I can find in my collection. A Viking chest is wider at the bottom than at the top (prevents tipping) and the two end boards are longer than the rest, creating “feet” that keep the chest off the ground (or out of the bilge water). It’s a practical design. I used a lot of construction cheats to make it looked joined, though it’s actually all screwed together.

A while back one of the feet broke. It’s been breaking off again periodically, under stress, ever since. I’d been planning to fix it for some time, by running a couple long screws up inside the boards the long way.

Last week I drilled starter holes for the screws, but found that the holes were too short for the very long screws I’d found somewhere. I went to the hardware store for a longer drill bit, and the guy sold me one he swore was the right size. It was not. It was too wide; the screws barely bit.

So yesterday I unscrewed the screws (not very hard) and dumped some toothpicks into the holes, along with Elmer’s glue. Then I coated the screws with glue as well, and tightened it all down. Seems solid.

I needed some sense of accomplishment. Finishing my translation work will help with that too. Better get back to it.