Santa's Workshop Moved

Santa's workshop moved from the North Pole to take up residence in our dining room.

It all started with making a green pig (from the animated game, Angry Birds) stuffed animal for Luke. Proud of how well it turned out, I posted a picture on Facebook. Orders started pouring in. Daniel also did a little boasting at work, and returned home with not only an order for a green pig, but one for an apron and requests to know what else I might make; one co-worker (short on time but not on cash) would like to give as many handmade things this year as possible.

In addition to the assembly line of green fleece, I am making some other things for family and friends for Christmas. Fabric and craft supplies are slowly taking over the apartment; but I enjoy this process as I carefully think about each person and evaluate what they would like. December is going to be busy!

Finally! New Sofas in the Family Room

We've lived a sofa-less life for a year and a half now, at least in our family room. Having everyone share one chair just wasn't working for us (except the person who got the chair).

This past weekend Ikea had a special deal going on their upholstered seating...AND a free meal if you spent over $100. So we were down there early Friday morning. Now Ikea isn't considered the best quality furniture, and it isn't usually my first choice, but they are one of the few manufacturers who make the covers removable and washable. I've come to value that highly. The other companies are so far out in left field price-wise that Ikea became our only choice.

Here is our new Ektorp sofa and loveseat in green. The green doesn't show true on the computer screen; it isn't as yellow as it looks. Later on, we plan to buy the matching chair. Then we should be set for seating a roomful of friends and family.Come for a visit soon!

Farewall, Trees

Yesterday we had 17 trees taken down in our backyard (sob!). It was hard to see them go, but they were old and diseased and in danger of falling on the house. 16 of them were along the back property line, at the top of the hill. All Sweetgums, they were already mature when we bought our house 19 years ago.

The final tree was our dogwood next to the patio. We had cut out so much dead wood from it that it was seriously lopsided. And it really struggled to put out the leaves every spring.

Our neighbor also had a tree removed, a messy volunteer that hung over our fence and dropped debris in our yard spring, summer, and fall. We're relieved to have our gutters clean again.

Here are some before and after shots:
Before, the treeline along the fence is quite dense. The Sweetgum trees on our property have a backdrop of pines and native hardwoods growing on surrounding properties.

After. You can see the native trees have been thinned out considerably. All the remaining trees except one are on surrounding properties.
Before, showing our neighbor's tree hanging over our house, and our dogwood by the patio:
After:
You can also see that our neighbor's poplar was also trimmed (they "raised the canopy" on it).

We have three 6 ft red maple saplings awaiting their planting on the hill. We hope that soon they will fill in and recreate that wooded feeling we're missing already.