Well, I wasn't planning to submit this batch of coins until my membership renewed and I got my additional $150 credit on June 12th...

The problem with this is that not having coins graded that I can pop into a set and not having a public set I can actually build has proven ... demotivating... when it comes to my research and writing efforts.

It simply isn't as fun or as satisfying to work on a Word file with no pictures.

So I've found myself pulled in other directions recently. But I'm still confident I can probably get something good together before November. Probably.

Another problem I've been grappling with however is just getting some of the coins I've ordered.

I've ordered some coins for the Venezuela set and the Italian 500 Lire set from different dealers in Europe and both sets of coins have not arrived. I've had to put in "Item not received" tickets on these, getting my money back in one instance and not in another. So, this is probably going to force me to just leave a hole in the Venezuela set for now and to just go with what I have on the 500 Lire coins.

On an unrelated note, I've been experimenting with Miniature painting recently and Ben got into it with me a little. I'll resist the urge to spam pictures on this.

Much like with the coin collecting, I find that he unsurprisingly lacks my patience. He'll declare himself done with a miniature in 30-45 minutes but I'll work on one thing for more than one session, applying more than one coat of paint, and spend a couple of hours total on each mini.

But it's fun to work on these and like me he likes using the same magnifying lamp that's been seeing use as we pick coins for grading.

I still need to find / buy / pick out some additional coins to grade when that submission goes in just to round it out. Given that we're in mid-May I should probably get on that... probably.

Or I may just end up submitting what I have or just throwing some more random stuff in.