An early Christmas present...

We received a most delightful present recently from our friend Carol Taylor. Carol is a local visual artist/potter/volunteer who has helped us a lot with our home, particularly in plaster work. Working with a clay-based plaster was second nature to her, of course, and you can clearly see which sections of wall she worked on because they're so perfectly done. Much to our surprise, she slipped a lump of clay home with her one day from the sprawling pile of soil on our site, sculpted it into this sweet birdie and fired it in her kiln. Dave and I love her work and it's really an honour to have such a personal piece in our home. We're hoping to embed it directly in the plaster of a wall.

As we approach the Christmas holidays, we're still negotiating our way through the world of sub-contractors in hopes that we'll have most contracts near completion by end of week. Bah humbug. The final plumbing won't happen until next week with Christmas so close, and cabinet-making will begin after that. All of the added stress has us more than a little frazzled, and we're working hard to keep it from running us done completely before the holidays. I even went so far as to declare that I wouldn't be 'doing' a Christmas tree this year [the devil made me do it]. At the whisper of such nonsense, my mother promptly delivered a loaner tree to us. It's the first time we've ever had an artificial tree, but it's lovely all the same. Thanks, Ma.

This weekend, we'll take a full two-day break (since Dave has to work the rest of the holidays) before throwing ourselves back into the swing of construction. Ah, looking forward to sipping sociables by the tree...