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!