Worker bees

Tuesday morning here...feels like Monday because we were off yesterday with the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. I admit we didn't do anything to serve the public & honor Dr. King. We were working our tails off on the laundry room (well, Jared was mostly). Saturday we got all the drywall installed, Sunday we flubbed around a bit (chilly foggy wet weather wasn't very inspiring) but then Jared got a late afternoon jump on the window & door trims and got a good head of steam. And Monday was a biggie day - Bird and I played together most of the day while Jared pounded away at all the beadboard & trim installation. It's a small space - tiny. But it's FULL of trim - 3 windows & 3 doors worth. And being an old porch with a sloping ceiling and parts of the exterior house shape and stucco defining the interior space, it had plenty of tricky cuts. I spent a bit of time at Lowe's Saturday night trying to find a contour gauge tool (their website said they had 4 in stock...) with no luck. Eventually we found one at another store on Sunday. It's basically a row of pins set into a metal bar - you push it against a shape (a curving wall, etc.) in order to get the negative space. Very handy tool!

Now it's my turn in the space. I'm essentially the "finisher" in the family. The room requires an obscene amount of patching & caulking before I can get going on the priming & painting. Luckily, I love this kind of work. It's annoying wearing a respirator & gloves (caulk is pretty nasty stuff) but it's so satisfying seeing an old beat up piece of wood blend seamlessly into the room with a little TLC (we used a mix of old & new wood for the project & it's a lovely combination - the old wood came from our former tiny closet).

In other news...I'll hopefully have my camera back soon. I dropped my nikkor lens off at a nifty little camera shop yesterday. A older German man (and his son too maybe?) run this gem of a shop & I've heard the best things about them. Hoping they work some magic on my sad lens. I miss it.

I'm 31 weeks pregnant! Starting to feel like it too. I have braxton-hicks contractions OFTEN and have definitely had a tougher time keeping up with everything with a 2.5yo to tend to. I'm really trying to cut back on how much I carry Bird (which is a lot) and letting Jared walk Phylo as much as possible. It seems getting out for a walk by myself is near impossible (it's still dark out so early & we're just so busy).

I've been keeping at it with my sketch book and putting together textile designs. One of my goals this year is to make art every day. Be it a tiny scribble or a big chunk of time in the studio it all accumulates into progress & keeping the gears moving. It's been totally fun to have the last few weeks delving into ceramics as well & I can't wait to share some pics (just need the camera...). One thing I'm working on in studio today is a set of house numbers for us. I'm super excited about them!

Have a lovely day all! I'm going to get a bit more painting in (via Photoshop) for my last hour of babysitting time. First, I have to share a painting Bird did the other day (below). I dripped bits of concentrated watercolor on the page where she directed and then she went to town. I just love it! :o)

Hugs, Devon

Bird's artwork - ink & paint, 1/2011