Thawing Out and Gearing Up

Good thing the plants don't need watering anytime soon.

Take THAT, record cold! Thanks to Mason feeding the fire every few hours on Monday night, we survived a low of 1 degree, which seems kinda amazing considering how "shacky" our little shack in the woods feels sometimes. The cold water faucet in the kitchen froze, but only briefly. So did the rainwater collection "system." But tomorrow? High of 60, thank you very much (yeah, yeah, yeah, and rain).

We make a lot of lists on the mountain. I splurged and used some gorgeous paper from Michiela for this one,

I used my time holed up inside to come up with a wish list for my one-month sabbatical. Topping the list? Paint the new shed, which is coming along nicely. Except the doors. Doors are much harder to build than one would think. So far, the only thing I've scratched off the list is mulching around the new shed, and Mason did much of that.

That's the new shed on the right. The gray blob (front right) is a camellia covered by a sheet. 

I won't share everything on my to-do list, just so I have a few surprises for you this month. Let's just say the orbital sander is front and center. (The sound of the sander immediately brings me back to Ecuador, where Mason and I sanded and painted the bottom of Run Free, our trusty old sailboat.) And as always, impromptu projects pop up, like yesterday when I worked on making some homemade wooden yoga blocks. Pretty nifty, eh? And they weren't even on the list! (Photo to come -- still have to polyurethane them!)

One last bit of news today: Mason is a grandfather, again!! Grandchild No. 7 was born at an ungodly hour this morning. We don't have a name yet, but he's sure a cutie. Congrats Matt and Joanna!