Life is about attitude - the Half Empty or Half Full thing. So when faced with chemo - my friend Carol could have gotten all bent out of shape about her hair falling out. Instead, she chose to see it as an opportunity to go shopping, for wigs and hats, and turbans etc. - crisis presenting opportunities.
So - following the example she'd set, I decided to try and turn a Wig Stand. She had wigs and hats and turbans and therefore a need for a wig stand. The only wood I had big enough was an old, really old, redwood 4 x 6 fence post -close to 8 feet of it. A little glue, some clamping and I had the blank.
A little chalk, some bandsawing and I had something ready for the lathe
Stuff was VERY dry and tended to shred rather than slice nicely - no matter how sharp my gouges
But a bit of work with the Eighty Grit "gouge" and then some sanding. . .
A simple painted face wasn't going to do it for this thing - so it was off the Longs Drugstore - for some fingernail polish in black, blue, metallic blue, red and "pearlescent" pink - along with a pair of false eye lashes. Only when I returned home did it cross my mind "I wonder what the lady at the cash register thought of my, in retrospect, odd purchases.
When I went back to get another pair of false eye lashes for the second wig stand, I took the first one which I'd finished with me - to show her I wasn't some kind of Weirdo. Her response to my explanation "Honey, you'd be amazed at I've rung up for guys since I've been here. Why I could write a book . . ." I paid for the eye lashes, got in my car and tried very very hard to not think about even the chapter headings of the book she could write, let alone the details of any one of them. In this case Ignorance IS Bliss.
CRISIS = OPPORTUNITY