Hello Again!  Happy (Belated) Valentine's Day!  

Jai managed to find me some very nice flowers here in Bridgetown - no easy feat for around here!  And I found the little Pooh book at a recent Frenchy's trip.  It is the sweetest thing - full of little quotes about love and friendship from the stories.  

  

We had another full weekend of working on our room, trying to get it done so we can finally start living in it.  Jai worked on mudding and sanding all the new drywall, and I got the window seat built and the molding done.  

We are finally at the point where everything is primed and ready to be painted.  That should be the fun part, and I think we are both really looking forward to actually getting some paint on the walls this weekend.  I couldn't wait, and we did a little patch of the new colour, just to see.

Soon we really will have a room.  It's been weird now that Jai is working all day every day, and I am trying to get as many hours in as possible before I just can't work any more.  It seems like we never have any time to get anything done!  Everything's just a little bit harder in the winter, too.  You can't open the windows to clear the fumes, and it gets dark so early that there's no point in starting to paint at five o'clock.   Oh well, I guess that's part of what winter is for - getting us to slow down a little, and stop being in such a hurry.  Last night after we had finished doing the primer, we only had about an hour of daylight left, so we quit for the day, picked up a pizza, and played some Scrabble.  It was lovely, and easy to excuse, knowing that it was back to work on Monday morning.    

We'll probably have some long days this week, but not tonight.  Tonight is our first ever prenatal class!  Unfortunately we missed the first session (regular births) and are starting with the second session (problem births.)  Apparently there's a DVD we can borrow, in order to catch up.  So once again, we are woefully unprepared.  I figure this baby just better get used to it!  Hopefully they won't scare us too, too much - but I guess it's too late to back out now, anyway :)

And finally, a little taste of spring.  I bought this container of bulbs when Sarah and Erin and I went to Den Haan's Garden Centre for a winter pick-me-up, and they are finally starting to bloom!  It's so nice to see daffodils, and even nicer to smell them.  I talked to my Grandma out in Victoria last night, and the tulips are already starting to poke out of the ground there, so it's almost like a little taste of home :)

photos, photos, photos

Hello!  Hooray for photos!  We got our Mac back finally, although not our Hard Drive.  Luckily, we had purchased the extended warranty, because all the repairs were free, and we still have until the end of March on our warranty.  We also bought an external hard drive, so if it ever happens again, we won't lose all our stuff.  Losing all your stuff...not so fun.

Anyway, I thought I would post some pics of what we've been up to, including walking through snow...

following the paths of others who have gone before us :)

We've been working hard on our little room.  I took a couple of early shots, after most of the room was cleared out, but before we began to build the shelves and repair the holes in the wall.

Also, some shot of the shelves being built and moved into place.

Next is the priming, which has begun, but still has a ways to go.  Hopefully tomorrow we can finish priming the shelves and preparing the walls.

And I have found time for a little knitting, including finishing my first ever baby sweater, from the book, One Skein.  It turned out really cute, although bigger than I was expecting.  That's ok, I decided, it will just fit for longer.  

More soon...

Hello All! Hope you are all well, and enjoying whatever weather is happening outside your window as you read this. We are in the middle of yet another big winter storm, dumping 15-30 cm. of snow and freezing rain. Jai and I both ended up having a snow day today, and we both managed to make it a fairly productive event. It wasn't as cold as it has been, so I was able to get the shop to a decent temperature, and finally get some much-needed shop time in. I still can't post any pics, although I did manage to finally get the Mac into the repair shop, but I finally finished a couple of commissions that have been hanging around, waiting very patiently, for an unforgiveably long time. Only a couple more to go... I'll post pics when I can, as I am very happy with one of them in particular.
In baby news this week, I am getting kicked all the time now. I think this might be one strong baby, with very long legs! It's definitely an odd feeling, but kind of comforting at the same time.

Jai got a little more work done on our room this week, and it's starting to really come together. Next up is a whole lot of mudding, and then the priming and painting. All the builiding is finished, so that was my main contribution. Next, for us, I have to finish building the couch I started ages ago, so that we will have somewhere to sit. I was looking at the Ikea web-site (always a risky thing to do) and found some really cool rugs that are meant to be for kids rooms, but that might just be perfect for our main living space.

I spent this weekend up in Halifax, getting a short visit in with family, and then photographing a wedding. It was super fun! I like getting to see people on their happy day, and I especially like getting a free gourmet meal :) I'm looking forward to seeing how the photos turned out, it was quite an extravagant wedding, by my standards, at least :)

Other than that, it has been life as usual for us this week. Jai has made us some of his amazing potato-leek soup for dinner, and my belly is grumbling! Talk to you soon - have an excellent week!

Winter Storm Update

Hello! Well, we still haven't made it to the Mac repair shop. And now I'm starting to get a big build up of photos that I would like to post. Oh well, I'm sitting here having a bed-time snack out of my Suzanne Babineau birthday bowl, and I thought I would share a photo off her web-site, just so this isn't a totally pictureless post.

She does such beautiful pottery; I really love her work. Every year at the Christmas shows (which seem to always co-incide with my birthday) I try and get at least one piece. And it really does make the cereal taste better!

We're in the middle of another Maritime storm here. Outside the window, the snow is blowing like crazy, beating against the glass on all four sides of the house, it seems. Later on, it's supposed to turn into freezing rain, then rain, then more snow, so I imagine the roads are going to be messy and dangerous out there tomorrow - good news for all the school kids! Jai is up in Annapolis Royal right now, having a band practice. If you haven't checked out Dayliner yet, you can download two free songs off the web-site: http://www.daylinerband.com/

I've been busy here, clearing all the furniture out of the dining room and building a bunch of new bookcases that will go all around the room. It's a very exciting project, although I must admit that all the getting up and down off the floor is a little harder than it used to be! Everything is just taking a little more time than I was hoping for. We're hoping that it will all be built by Friday, because I am off to Halifax to photograph another wedding, and it would be great if Jai could do all the priming that needs to be done while I am out of the house. We bought some no-VOC paint, so that should be all right, but good primer can be pretty stinky. It will be so nice to make some progress on this room, as it's been a while living with broken plaster, exposed lathe, and a big gap in the floor. We'll still be short a few key pieces of furniture, but at least the bones will be there.

Jai has been busy settling in at his new job. He's really loving it, which is so nice to see. And he's brought me home a whole bunch of new knitting books, so I am totally looking forward to having the time to just sit and knit again. This week has been a little hard, as I am trying to work as much as possible at the cabinet shop, as well as being a busy builderton at home. Time is just flying by! And I don't imagine it will get better any time soon. Oh well, we're trying our best to make sure there's still time for eating good food, snuggling by the fire, and catching up on each other's news, even if it means that the laundry piles up a little, and the kithcen gets a little messy:)

Bookmobile!

Hello Again! Well, it has become time to admit that our Mac needs more help than we can give it. We need to take it in to the Mac dealer in the area and have it looked at, but the store is about 45 mintues away from where we live, and the roads have been quite bad this weekend. We have had many days of weather with the temperature hovering around -20, and steady snowfall. Apparently it is too cold for them to use salt on the roads, so they have just been sanding for the last four or five days, and everything is white, white, white. It's very pretty, but more so if you don't HAVE to venture out. When you're actually out in it, it can be difficult to appreciate how pretty it is because you can barely keep your eyes open. Much nicer from inside, beside the wood stove! Anyway, what this rambling all boils down to is that I am writing this on our laptop, and therefore will have no pictures to share this post.


I feel like all I did this week was work, but that's not quite true. We had a night of visiting with friends, and then a night of celebrating with friends, as Jai managed to accomplish something quite incredible this week. He got a fabulous new job as the Bookmobile Driver! Starting tomorrow, Jai will be working at the Annapolis Valley Library HQ, here in Bridgetown.

That's a picture off the web-site. It's a full-time, steady job with full benefits and a pension plan. One of the very few jobs in the area to offer all of the above. Plus, driving around to schools, pre-schools, tiny communities, and senior's homes, and then hanging out while people browse for books. Only two weeks ago we were walking up to the library HQ, talking about how that would be the coolest job in the world, when lo and behold, it was advertised just days later. And then, my own wonderful husband managed to beat out 20 other applicants to get it. Needless to say, I am very proud and excited for him (and just a wee bit jealous:))

Other than that, we don't have a lot of news. We did make it up to see the OBGYN this week, and he seems nice, but didn't tell us anything new. Pretty soon, I will have to take a picture of myself, as people are starting to feel like it's safe to comment on the size of my belly, which means to me that I must be very obviously pregnant now. I have to say, I find it a little strange that people don't think twice about commenting on my body. I'm sure I'm not the first pregnant lady to feel that way, but I do find it strange that people I hardly know are comfortable discussing how big I'm looking, right to my face. Oh well, I guess I've got a couple of months to get used to it, still. Which is good, because there's still a million things that need to get done around the house.
I have to admit, I find it much harder to get things done during the winter. I always think I'll get a lot done, because there's no gardening to do, and there's the occasional bonus snow day thrown in there. The reality is, though, that I don't like to work after it gets dark, and I don't like to work in the freezing cold, and I just never seem to have as much time as I think I will. I rest a lot more, despite my best intentions. I think, maybe, the winter will require me to plan better. There is no popping out into the woodshop for an hour or two, here and there, because it takes several hours to get the shop up to a bearable temperature. There is no nipping out to the store, or the paper cutter, as it requires a big dressing-up procedure, and then battling through the snow to get there. It is much easier to put things off. So I am going to have to make up some sort of plan, I think, if I want to get anything done. Luckily, I enjoy making lists :)

And, having said all that, I do believe I would miss the winter if we moved back to somewhere that didn't have it. It really is pretty, and the snow really does make everything brighter and cleaner looking. I'm very much looking forward to when it starts to warm up a little (say up to around 0 degrees) and the sun comes back out. And those first little snowdrops peaking up through the snow truly are a sight to behold. I was dreaming last night about eating peaches right off our tree...

A Little Taste of Fall

Hello! It's a winter wonderland outside our windows right now. Today we had 15 cm of big fluffy flakes float down - on top of the 10 or so that we already had sitting in our driveway. It's all shovelled now, though, so hopefully we'll all be able to get to work again tomorrow. Not that I mind the occasional snow day!

Anyway, I don't have any pictures of that, but I do have some nice fall scenery pictures that I played with a little in my new photo editing program. I kind of lost touch with the photography world after I got my degree, so it's amazing to me how much it has changed in the last seven years. We were probably the last class to graduate without using digital cameras. And now... it's all totally different. I could have finished school and kept right on taking pictures - without needing to set up a darkroom and dealing with chemicals and buying reams and reams of film. Part of me still feels that things are lost by not being in the darkroom, playing with lights and chemicals, and watching the paper develop in the tray, but now I can also see how things could really be gained, too. I had a lot of fun playing with the computer and making these photos into what I always intended them to be. Not that I'm suddenly going to go back to being a photographer, but it certainly opens up possibilities. I'm doing another wedding at the end of this month, and I'm totally looking forward to it.
Going back to work this last week has been pretty nice. I really, REALLY enjoyed my vacation, but it's nice to feel like a productive member of society again, too. I like getting out of the house, at least, and I enjoy the work at the cabinet shop. It makes me think about projects that I might not think much about otherwise, and it's nice to get out of my own head for a while. Although I have been enjoying creating some of the stuff that I've been wanting to make. I did a ton of painting over the holiday, I just haven't gotten to the woodworking part yet to complete all the new whirligigs that are waiting to be put together. We're hoping to spend some time this summer really making the shop more insulated. Right now, it's always freezing cold and terribly dark out there, and it takes so long to get it warm that some days it's too easy for me to find other things to do. Hopefully soon Jai will find some time to replace the breakers that go out to the shop and then they won't flip all the time. Every time a breaker flips, someone has to go into the low, dark, spider-filled basement to flip it back. Sometimes if Jai isn't home, I end up coming inside and finding something else to do. Obviously, it isn't ideal working conditions, but some of the changes, at least, could be done relatively cheaply. And it's definitely better than no shop at all. Much better :)

Baby Steps

Hello Again! I thought I would take a moment to do a quick update. We had our baby ultrasound just before Christmas and I never had a chance to sit down and write about the experience, which was very, very cool. Unfortunately Nova Scotia doesn't provide pictures, you can't even purchase one unless you go into Halifax for a "cosmetic ultrasound," which sounds so posh and silly. So I have nothing to show you, but I don't think the still images really capture the experience, anyway. The neatest part was watching the baby move around, seeing his heart beat, watching him "breathe" (note: we don't know if it's a boy or girl, so I'm just saying "he" to avoid getting myself confused.) At one point, he put his hands up by his face, and waved his fingers at us. It was the sweetest thing. Even the tech seemed taken with our baby, although I'm sure most mothers-to-be feel that their baby is probably the cutest baby ever. Anyway, there is ten fingers and ten toes and everything seems to be as it should, so that is the main thing. And we got a new official due date: April 25th.
Hmmm... now that it's 2009, that doesn't seem very far away at all. We've both gone back to work now, so once again, our time is not entirely our own. I'm hoping to work until at least the end of February, but I'm already less useful in the shop than I'd like (for example, tomorrow we have a big load of wood coming in, and Stephen doesn't want me to be lifting it. Not sure what I'd be doing instead - watching?) So we'll see how that goes. I have been moving ahead on getting some more whirligigs made up - I've got three new ones all painted, waiting to be cut and pieced together, so I should have some new pictures to share soon. I have to make sure that I make time in the next couple of weeks to get some of my own work done.
Plus, we want to try and get some more renovations finished before it's too late. I have a couple of large pieces that I need to build a.s.a.p. for our own house.
Still, with all this stuff going on, it's pretty exciting to have a good reason to get it accomplished. The accumulation of random baby things has already begun, and there seems to be no end in sight. Luckily, we have so many friends and family members that have already had their babies, that it seems like we will be able to get most of what we need as hand-me-downs. We even had a woman call the other day who is a friend of a friend, and dropped off four boxes of stuff for us. I haven't gone through it all, but it looks like some very nice things, including a jolly jumper. I think it's kind of too bad they don't make those for adults!

Happy New Year!

Ah, the last post of 2008! I would have written sooner, but we had various power outages and other excuses. I was sitting here today, though, and I realized that if I put it off any more, it will be next year. Wow.
Hope everyone had an excellent Christmas! We had a fabulous Christmas here in Bridgetown, although it was not quite white. We had big storms on either side of Christmas, and there was a foot of snow on Christmas eve, but it was all gone by the time we woke up on Christmas morning. Mom and Errol came down for the night, so we had a nice family Christmas - Jai made up a huge turkey for Christmas Eve dinner, with Grandma's recipe for perfect stuffing.
Everyone, including the cats was completely spoiled.
Christmas Day we headed over to Brandon and Jo's, with a bunch of friends, and had turkey dinner #2. There's something so yummy and festive about turkey dinner. Theirs was delicious, and also came surrounded by excellent company.
Plus, check out this set that Jo found for me at a yard sale. I think they are the coolest little things.
Oops, I just realized that I only have time for a quick update, since we are due at a friend's house in ten minutes (luckily they are only a three minute walk away!) Anyway, our other piece of major news is that we finally are getting somewhere on the house renovations again. It's been so long that we are totally used to living in a construction zone, but we're both feeling really excited about getting it done again. And rearranging all the furniture gave us some new ideas about how we want to use our space. It's all very exciting.
Anyway, here's a picture of us drywalling the ceiling,
And our new ceiling fan, which we're hoping will move the heat from the wood stove all around the house.
I'll post more soon, with baby updates, and all that goodness. Until then, Happy New Year! And may you be blessed, in 2009, with the ingenuity of a hungry squirrel...

Snow days!

Hello! Well, we had our final Christmas Show in Annapolis Royal last weekend. It was relaxing and fun, and the weather was great, so that was pretty good. There are so many talented people in the area that it turns out to be a really good show, usually, and we know many of the people that come through as both buyers and sellers, so it is quite a social one day event.
This week we had two snow days, so Jai and I got to take two whole days to just hang out and relax, which was super nice. And what did we do with two whole days? We made cookies!
Yum. My Grandma's famous sugar cookie recipe with real butter icing and pretty silver balls. We got our tree all set up, although we haven't decorated it yet. It's another perfect Nova Scotia tree that we purchased at the farmer's market for $20. I think that's the most we've ever paid for a tree here, but still seems like nothing to us, who came from the land of $65 being a cheap tree. We're hoping to decorate it tonight, if there's time when we get home from a community dinner our friends have organized.
Work-wise, I am still working on finishing up the last couple of commissions that had to get put off when we got Christmas-season crazy. Jai's bowl of tops is seriously dwindling, and it's almost time for both of us to get back to some serious work in the shop. 2009 looks like it will be a super busy year, as I have one confirmed show in Annapolis Royal, and a couple of others that are exciting possibilities. Also, there are two juried international exhibitions that I have committed to applying for in the early months of next year. Whether or not I will be accepted doesn't really matter at this point, but it is good to have goals and deadlines, so that I continue to push myself to try and make new and interesting things. It is so important, and sometimes so difficult, to make the work feel refreshing and interesting to me, never mind to other people. Anyway, what that means is that it is time, once again, to sit down and get familiar with my sketchbook.
Other than that, everything is going well. Jai and I have our ultrasound on Monday, so we're pretty excited about that. We're not going to find out if it's a boy or a girl; we decided to be surprised. I'm still feeling pretty good, as long as I make sure to take time to rest (which I've been doing a lot of, this week!) I think I'm starting to show a little, but not so much that I have had any strangers come up to me and say anything.
We're hoping to get our Christmas packages wrapped up and sent out this week, and our Christmas cards written and sent out as well. I can't believe it's less than two weeks till Christmas!

"Little by little, one travels far."

`J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973)

Breaking out the Big News

Hello! I'm back, as promised, with another update.
It's been another busy work week for me, making two custom boxes, as well as working my regular shifts at the cabinet shop and a surprise shift at the post office. Above is a pic of one of the recently completed boxes, and below are some of the new books I made to take to our Christmas show.
I tried out some smaller, coptic bound books to make it so we could have a broader price range, and I am really happy with them. I met a professional bookbinder at the show who said he would show me how to do endbands if I look him up next time I'm in Halifax, so that was pretty exciting, as I tried to figure it out on my own from a photo of a finished endband, and had mixed results.
Jai was busy, too, but he did make time to begin to finish our renovations on our library/living space. We started this ages ago - actually, this is the first room we started when we moved in - and we are both really looking forward to having it done. The ceiling and the way that the walls will attach to the dining room have been holding us back, ever since we took the wall down to have the woodstove put in. Anyway, we still haven't totally figured out how we're going to solve some of the problems, but at some point, you just have to begin. So we cleared the room out, sealed it off, and Jai finished taking the ceiling down.
And, saving the best for last...
The word is out, so I think it is safe for me to start writing about this...
Jai and I are having a baby at the beginning of May :) This is another reason for the less frequent posts, as I have been super ridiculously tired by the end of the day, most days. I'm definitely feeling better now, though (I can actually stay up past 10 o'clock again!) and really, I feel pretty lucky, as other than the exhaustion, so far I've gotten off pretty easy, compared to some of the stories I've heard! So that's it, that's our big news - probably the biggest news we'll ever have.

Christmas Show!

Hi!!! (Finally!) Sadly, I don't have a lot of time to write tonight, but I thought I better sneak a minute to post a small update, at least. This last weekend was the NSDCC Christmas Craft Show, which is the main reason why it has been so long since I wrote!
Our new booth worked great, and was super easy to set up. We got lots of compliments on it, so that was pretty nice. Friday was a slow day for us, lots of people browsing through and paying us with compliments. Then early Saturday morning Nova Scotia was hit with a huge blizzard. We couldn't even get the car (we tried to borrow Mom and Errol's SUV) down the street, the snow was so deep that the car was bottoming out, and then we couldn't even get it back in the driveway. The plows didn't do their their cul-de-sac, so Jai and I loaded up all the stuff we wanted to bring and hiked out to the nearby Superstore to catch a cab. We made it eventually, but there were quite a few vendors that didn't, and hardly any customers at all. Halifax was basically shut down, they weren't ready for the snow at all. We saw a bus full of people stuck in a snow drift in an intersection, and our cab driver was saying (among other, more eccentric things) that he had seen a plow that was stuck. Yikes.
Anyway, despite Saturday, which was spent visiting and making new friends, mostly, I am going to count the show a success. We made some excellent contacts, so keep your eyes posted here for some exciting new updates.
And my whirligigs were a big hit, which is exciting to see. So it looks like I will be making lots more of those in the near future, and I'm looking forward to that.
And, yes, I had a birthday on Sunday! It was great, and nice to be able to visit with some family and eat home-made birthday cake.
Anyway, I have a few pics of our booth, but not too much of anything else, so I will try and post again soon with more photos, and some more news!

Hello!  Not much news to report around here, again.  I'm afraid the next couple of weeks will be more of the same as we bust our butts to get ready for the big Christmas show.  Plus, I'm still working outside of our business five days a week, and this week I am subbing some yoga classes for one of the local teachers who is under the weather.  Whew!  

I have found time to finish up six books this week, but not time to photograph them!  Imagine in your mind six beautifully bound books in assorted woods and sizes.  And Jai has been trying extra hard to find time to make some tops.  Hopefully, it will all pay off in the end.  Fingers crossed!

That is a whole tray of in-production bookmarks, which are thankfully finished now :)

Have a great week!