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)