Rosemary, the queen of Halloween in her natural habitat (part of the garage converted to a dungeon the night of Halloween, 2015).

My mother-in-law passed away on Tuesday afternoon at the age of 76. She was a complicated woman. As I’ve alluded to in the past, her declining health was a factor in the summer-long hiatus of eWillys.

Between the pandemic, her cancer and her COPD, the last two years have been full of medical appointments, oxygen machines, 911 calls, drug management, and patient management. Two Christmas’s in a row have been interrupted with Emergency Room visits.

Much of the work (and frustrating grief) fell into the hands of my wife, Ann, who, through the deaths of her sister and father (both from Huntington’s disease years ago …. a terrible way to go), along with the deaths of several other relatives, has become someone of an expert in palliative (end of life) care, especially related to COPD and/or congestive heart failure. She was a huge asset to my father during his last years and I’ve learned a great deal from her about end of life issues.

My MIL was both grateful for our help and critical of our help during her ill years, because she could be critical of most anything. One of her favorite statements was, “whoever designed this [whatever it was] should be dragged out and shot.” We heard this more and more as she got more and more confused about technology and life; but she was certain she was right and the designer of said service/item was wrong. In fact, she was usually right about everything, whether she was actually right or not.

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UPDATE: A few more pics .. .made some more progress hanging tools and also built a way simple way to store cans of spray paint. I even cleaned everything out around the race jeep, so it won’t be too long before I can address those spacers again (that should answer your question Mark). Over the next few days I hope to complete the rolling work table (and removed the long narrow table). I’ve also ordered some LED shop lights, which have received favorable reviews on Amazon. I’m hoping them will give better light and be easier to hang than the big florescent ones I already have. I will report on those when I get them.

The tables with the paint on them are the free tables given away by the local high school. I scraped the gum and washed them up. I also painted the legs on two of the tables black, as they were pretty scratched.

Here, I’ve started experimenting with hanging some of the tools. The wrenches on the right are standard, while the ones on the left are metric. The peg board on the left will have wood-working tools for now. We’ll have another load of dad’s (and grandpa’s) tools in a couple weeks, which will add to the boards and the tool boxes.

The race jeep is ready to receive some attention now that it is freed from stuff.

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Originally posted August 19, 2021: In between everything else, I’ve been slowly working on my workbenches and places to hang tools, etc. One bench is about 8 ft long and the other 14 ft. They are made almost entirely out of recycled wood and reused screws. Now, I can start hanging tools and organizing the remainder into tool boxes.

My next project is a large, rolling work bench that will be the same height as the work benches. After that, I need to hang some lights over the benches to provide better light. Here’s a quick look.