Sticking my toes in....

Bowing to the urgings of friends and family (well, mostly family), I've started up my own little Etsy shop!  I figure I should probably put all this free time to productive use.

Etsy is a website that provides a place to buy and sell handcrafted goods. My shop is here: www.treeandstone.etsy.com

Right now I just have a few bracelets...

...and a few necklaces.

More things to come, purses and tote bags and maybe even hippo stuffies! :)

Christmas Night Cruise

Last night we took the boat out for a little cruise around Lake Union.  For the first time in the 7 years we've owned the boat, we were the only boat out on the lake!  It was amazing.  It felt like we had the whole city to ourselves.  The water was glass and the air was crisp.  A cold, clear night.

We didn't send out a Christmas letter this year, so this will do it for 2009.  Merry Christmas!

Admiral Ginger

Looking across Lake Union to Capitol Hill

This is as clear as I could do on a moving boat, you can sort of see the Space Needle...

Swietenia looks great with lights, Aurora Bridge above.  Look at the wake...

Coming through the Fremont Cut.  This was about a 2 second exposure.  I need a tripod!  Again, the wake is awesome.

Starboard side, heading towards the locks (not a single other boat out, love it!)

Lola was cold.  Red lights in the boat allow you to see out when you're driving and add extreme ambience!

The Porch Progresses, slowly.

This is, in fact, the project that never ends. There is a small bit of light at the end of the tunnel, however. This past weekend included setting the stone atop the stair walls and beginning the shingling of those walls.  We had to remove the temporary steps to do that.

The floor has two coats of sealer and three coats of oil.

Getting there....still need some trim.

Walls, almost done!

Stone, mortared into place and everything!

The blue thing is our foul weather canopy, lowered for the night so it doesn't blow away.

So, looks good, right? Almost done? HAH! Now we just need to put in the real steps (tigerwood treads, painted risers), strip the old columns, replace missing trim pieces on them, varnish the ceiling, replace trim around the ceiling, find and install a porch swing, and figure out what colors we're going to use.  And oh yeah, we still don't have a railing.......